n the aftermath of World War II, the United States accepted the mantle of global,leadership and worked to build a new global order based on the principles of,nonaggression and open, nondiscriminatory trade. An early pillar of this new,Iorder was the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction, which British histo-,rian Norman Davies has called “an act of the most enlightened self-interest in his- tory.”1 Americas leaders didnt regard this as charity. They recognized that a more peaceful and more p
