ABSTRACT
Long before the term Development made its regular appearance in discussions of U.S. foreign policy, its economic and political dimensions were integral aspects of post–World War II American geopolitics. And long before it was fashionable to talk in terms of the Third World, policymakers were concerned about the economic potential and political instability of regions considered indispensable to U.S. economic and strategic interests. The notion of Development, as an expression of policies designed to channel social and economic change in the Third World, emerged in roughly the same period as U.S. policymakers reassessed their position in the non-Western and non-industrialized worlds of Latin America, the Mediterranean, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. Out of this reassessment came a succession of policies and projects that reckoned with the international balance of power and with the situation of newly independent states. These states, their aspirations, and their anticolonial sensitivities imposed a new style on the formulation of policy. As the authors of a National Security Council (NSC) staff study recognized in the spring of 1952, "it is doubtful whether the U.S. or the U.K., or both together, could maintain and defend Western interests in the area in the 19th century fashion."* Policies of aid, assistance, and Development satisfied the requirements of the time.
