The Economic Struggle: U.S. Economic Foreign Policy During the 1960's

• Author: Kline R. Swygard
• Date: 01 September 1961
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296101400353
• Published date: 01 September 1961
• Subject Matter: Articles

33
stability; and (5) support of collective military measures, especially through the
military forces of the United Nations. To date none of these specific arms control
proposals gives us anything approaching a real solution to the threat of atomic
destruction. Yet it has been only a few years, in some cases only a few months,
since the serious thinkers about strategy became deeply involved in arms control
as a measure for national security. They provide cautious hope that the coming
years will bring a solution.
THE ECONOMIC STRUGGLE:
U.S. ECONOMIC FOREIGN POLICY DURING THE 1960’s
KLINE R. SWYGARD
Oregon State University
Prior to World War I, United States economic foreign policy was formu-
lated and executed with relative ease. Since World War II, United States
policy has been influenced, hindered, and sometimes controlled by strong
attitudes at home and by new, external forces which have brought about some
basic changes in the nature of the international community. This community
today lacks virtually all unifying forces except for a shared interest in peace,
security, and economic well-being. It is broken up into blocs; regional organiza-
tions ; disparate ideologies; clashing cultures; and economies which vary widely
in development and with extreme ranges in wealth and income. Military power
is concentrated in two nations, and the spectre of possible nuclear annihilation
hovers around us.
Four new primary forces which condition our economic policy are (1)
the evangelical, expansionist proclivities of an increasingly larger and stronger
Communist bloc; (2) the emergence of many new, independent states which
lack political stability and economic development; (3) regional organizations
or arrangements in which the United States is either a member, indirectly
related to them or affected by them; (4) the nearly universal agencies and
subdivisions of the United Nations.
The formulation and execution of policy becomes more complex, not only
because of each of these...