I never said that Britain was despotic, anti-democratic, or a Banana Republic. I would kindly appreciate it if people wouldn't put those words in my mouth. I did say that post-war Britain was hardly the most liberal place in the world (it wasn't) and wasn't the best place to live (much of South America wouldn't have the security-state aparatus in place, wouldn't have rationing, etc.).I'm sorry but post-war Britain had rationing based on low supply, nationalisation based on elected government policy and ID Cards based on War Time hangover, later removed in 1950 due to unpopularity.
Beyond this were hardly talking a Banana Republic, and quite frankly beyond being a US Ally your comparison with South Korea is utter nonsense.
The South Korea analogy was to give a reference to how the US really wouldn't care about it's allies state of government, so long as they were on the right side. Britain was (an is) a security state, and relaxed into a more liberal form of government after the war. It hardly had to, and the US wouldn't have exactly acted differently had it not, as the US still would have shipped aid. Britain liberalizing after awhile is the same kind of happy occurance that happened when the US liberalized after the war (or, come to that, after the Civil War, when the government assumed near-dictoral powers). Happy occurances, however, aren't requirements.
Europe, at this point, is mostly red anyways. While aid will certainly be sent to the remainder states to keep them safe, it's rather hard to sell that it would be the same amount and same type of aid of OTL simply redistributed amoung the remaining nations. Fewer civilian-reconstruction aid, for example, and more military aid along the lines of what the US does for Israel nowadays. An aid package for Israel may be worth millions, but much of it is military.Europe is crucial to US policy, they're not going to just hand over Marshall Aid to South America instead, unless the continent (Britain included) decides to go Red.
And of course, the US had entire schools for teaching governments for how to suppress Red movements. That's aid too.
Again, with all of Germany at a minimum behind the Iron Curtain, let alone the other parts of Europe, those allies and resources are already lost. No matter how much aid is poured into rebuilding France, for example, it won't somehow bring back the German markets and resources. In addition, however, there is now no strategic choke-point at which to reliably stop the soviets, no Gap. Any and all resources invested in the remainder of the Continent are resources at real risk of being overrun and seized should the Soviets attack. While this was also true of OTL, in OTL there was that nice buffer-zone called Western Germany at which to slowdown the Soviets while American troops shipped over.The loss of face, allies, resources etc. would be too much.
Money was all that was needed to rebuild the factories, repave the roads, rebuild the schools, and rebuild bridges and re-rail the train networks?They rebuilt Europe upto 1st World standards because they knew money was all that was needed, its different story in Latin America and most parts of Asia.
Strange, but I thought that those loans were by and large used to buy the replacements (often right back from the US), and not merely paper building blocks.
Europe's biggest advantage over Asia post-war is the educated populace and the infrastructure that's left. The resources are there in Asia and South America (and safer there too), and South America's infrastructure hasn't been wrecked by total war. The fact that the capital costs to start getting a return are larger in the Americas and Asia doesn't mean that the returns are going to be worse. Afterall, who has the second largest economy now? Hint, it's not in Europe.
Western Europe no longer exists. What's left is the Western fringe. Western Europe's place in the world economy is now behind the Iron Curtain. The US is already going to have to adjust anyways, and a significantly smaller number of places to invest in Western Europe means that that Lend-Lease money that went into Germany and farther east OTL has to go somewhere, and it doesn't just have to be piled on top of what's already going to Britain and France.They can't just replace Western Europe's place in the world economy by throwing cash at South Korea.
Western Europe was a crater anyways. The difference is that now most of that crater is behind the Iron Curtain. The soviets are ALREADY in a position of power over half of it: that's the entire point and basis of this thread. To discus how the ramnifications. And one of the ramnifications I'm trying to point out, which Faeelen saw, was that the post-war economies would undergo an adjustment, and that such an adjustment would not entail bigger economies for Europe.You leave Europe a crater you give it the possibility of repeating the chaos and woes of the 1920's-30s, while the Soviets are in a position of power over half of it. Result?
...The US did exactly that in the 1940s. It's called the Roosevelt administration. The subsequent Truman administration didn't exactly draw an atomic line in the sand over a number of European contries that the Soviets were working to get their grips on. Again, in this TL the Soviets are already much farther west, and will already have many more countries in their orbit.USA has the Americas and Pacific Rim to play with, little more as the USSR gains power. No US administration is going to do that in the late 1940's. It hand the iniative over to Moscow and upsets the balance of power worldwide. It domino theory on a VAST scale.
I might also point out Roosevelt's own opinion on the European war, at how Europe should reap what it sowed, but that view wasn't quite shared by successive administrations.
The average American loved Uncle Joe, though the Communists were great freedom fighters and beloved allies, and thought China was the America of the East, a land of limitless potential. In 1944/45. Then the pendulum shifted, but that was a bit later.Not to mention the average American has alot more empathy for the plucky Brits and poor Europeans who've been through hell than the Chinese or South Americans in 1945. They'd go apeshit if Washington left them.