Originally Posted by
Lendo
I don't have a single doubt that the US deliberately set in motion a globalization process with a final goal of political and economical influence or dominance over many countries. More than not having a single doubt, it was americans leaders who stated that goal very clearly. Speaches, oficial memos, oficial plans, memorirs of american politians make very clear that the United States deliberately promoted their culture, economy and political elements in a clear plan of influence and control countries and continental politics. The post-1945 american politic for South America and for Africa it's very clear on that: the US promoted revolutions, coup d'etats and political conspiracies with the single purpose of politically controling many countries, and to have clear way for american companies to establish themselves in those countries, either exploring resources (oil, gas, gold, etc.) or having the monopoly of certain sectors of the economy. In the book "Engaging Africa", Whitney Schnneidman (who colaborated with american presidents Clinton and Obama) clearly explained how the US set in motion many revolutions and political conspiracies in order for politians and revolutionaries with ties or controlled by the US get to power. It's nowadays public how the US financed many guerrilla and terrorist groups in Africa for them to get to power and open the door for US companies in their countries.
More than that, in Europe the US explicitly adopted a politic of persuasion and recruitment of countries to it's group of allies. And that politic of persuasion was based mostly in the exportation of american culture: music, cinema, clothes, american lifestyle, etc. Culture and economy were american weapons in a clear american politic for Europe of promotion of the american values and gathering european political support, in an effort for european countries not to succumb to the communist and soviet appeal. Because the soviets also tried to persuade Western Europe to join their political values, their political beliefs and social system, specially with the difusion of the works of communist philosophers and authors, suck as Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Babeuf, etc. and the movies of soviet directors like Eisenstein. Plus, the work done by communist parties threw out all Europe, specially in France and Italy, where the communists reached considerable levels of political influence.
Plan Marshall and the OTAN were two major economic and political weapons of american propaganda, while the Soviets had the Warsow Pact (their version of OTAN) and COMECON (their version of Plan Marshall).
It's as simple as this: both the US and the URSS knew that they were the two super powers in the world at that moment (post-war), and they knew that they would be in the position for expand their influence, their global preponderance and their values. And they tried as hard as they could to gain influence in every continent in the world. The americans were specially well succeded in Western Europe, while URSS was well succeded in South America and some regions of Africa. China, naturally, garanteed some influence in some asian countries, like Vietname, Laos, Camboja and North Korea.