After World War II, as the bipolar world emerged from the dust of the battles and conferences, the United States clearly marked out itself as being one of the two superpowers by building a complex structure of alliances and treaties that wove a tight net centered at Washington.

   To make this possible, the diplomats, the politicians and a whole nation had to sacrifice the old and almost sacrosanct principle that the United States should never seek any permanent alliances that might entangle it in the disputes and wars of another nation.

   However, now the United States had a will to seek permanent alliances. They were no longer considered to be entanglements - they showed how many other nations America had on its side, how many had chosen its way, its system. It was somehow also a race for prestige.

   One multilateral trade treaty followed the Marshall-Plan. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was a tool to further global free trade and implement the American economic principles among its members. The Agreement provided that in case a trade favor was granted to one member of GATT, it automatically extended to all the other members as well. Within the next 15 years, 63 nations had signed the Agreement controlling over 80% of international trade.[324]

   More traditional, a salute to the Monroe Doctrine, was the Rio Military Pact of 1947. The nations of the Americas assembled in Rio to reaffirm the special status of the western hemisphere. They pledged that ´an armed attack by any state against an American state shall be considered an attack on all American states.´  If the members agree on meeting the foreign aggression all members have to assist but it was left up to them to deceide whether that be militarily or non-militarily.

   The United States seemed to have finally accomplished both: a hemispheric secu- rity system and U.S. leadership in this organization.

    One year later, in 1948, the Organization of American States (OAS) was founded at Bogotá, Colombia. Article 15 was an explicit ban on any kind of intervention in the external or internal affairs of any other state. Regarding the U.S. past, that would have been a very grave limitation of freedom of action, but the United States of the Cold War was willing to pay this price if only benevolence and cooperation of its important neighbors were assured. The OAS was based in Washington, and con- ceived as an institution to handle hemispheric relations.[325]

   The rupture that went through the traditions of U.S. foreign policy is probably best exemplified by NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was the first military alliance of the United States with Europe in 171 years! In April, 1949 the United States and other nations joined an already existing European defense alliance. The new alliance provided for close political and economic collaboration and assistance in developing the ability to defend themselves. In case of an armed attack on one or several countries, all members of NATO would take action deemed necessary, in- cluding the use of force. This unprecedented entanglement on the most entangling of all continents, also served to assign the United States unprecedented power and influence. It obtained permanent bases in Europe, it had a say in internal European matters as related to military issues (i.e. the military budgets) and foreign units would serve under its command.[326]

   Other alliances and treaties the U.S. entered or initiated are the South East Asian Treaty Organization of 1954 to protect and develop the countries of the Pacific Rim, or bilateral defense treaties with Japan (1951/1960), South Korea (1953) and the Philippines (1951).[327]

   In building a web of security and economic development systems, the United States had sought to assemble nations under its shield that were willing to embrace American values and stand by its side against Moscow. A net of collective security would make up for the apparent uselessness of a United Nations blocked by a Soviet veto.[328]  The more nations integrated into America’s alliances, the less space for Soviet expansion, the better was Communism contained, was their logic.
 
 
 

   In the aftermath of World War II, the United States had left its traditional paths of foreign policy and had chosen to apply a broad notion of ‘national security’ to foreign relations. Anywhere in the world, where Communism crawled ahead the ‘national security’ of the United States was at stake. Americans would intervene, often at a high cost of lives and reputation. But one thing they would not do, the
Cold War did not allow them - to have merry old ‘isolationism’ again.

   Of the two roads that the young and ambitious nation had been standing in front of at the end of the 19th century and had taken some steps on, Americans had finally decided which one to take. It had needed some pushing by the chaotic events of this century, but from now on, they would march the ever broader street of 'internatio- nalism' down the course of history as way led on to way.  It would need many years and dramatic change to get the other path that to many appeared so much easier to
stroll back into sight as a plausible alternative.