War—Theory and Analysis of Results 21
World War, it turned to expanding its influence in the international context.
Following two major disasters that occurred in its recent past, Washington
has learned two significant lessons. From the great economic depression,
the United States learned that the great American economy could prosper
only through an open international economy, even one in which its former
enemies, Germany and Japan, participate. From the Second World War,
it learned that maintaining its own security and that of the Americas—
North, Central, and South—depended on no single great power control-
ling Europe or Eurasia. The strategy for achieving these goals was very
sophisticated. The United States planned and led new international organi-
zations that were intended to consolidate the open international economy
and contain any potential European or Eurasian hegemon. The United
States’ influence-expansion project has had two major achievements.
While in the United Nations, the U.S. leadership was sometimes subject to
criticism manifesting in the form of vetoing the Soviets, it was the interna-
tional organizations that helped it establish and develop the international
economy, particularly the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,
and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. When the United States
turned to solve the problems of European security, it established NATO in
order to contain the Soviet threat. It also added the Organization of Euro-
pean Economic Cooperation (OEEC) to help it implement its economic aid
plan for Europe, the Marshall Plan. Through NATO and OEEC, the United
States combined its concept concerning international organizations with
its preconception concerning local regions of influence.^24
Globalization. This is the process of integration of countries through
increased contacts, communication, and trade, which form a complete
global system in which the change process binds people to each other
increasingly to form a common fate. Many voices have indicated increas-
ing dissatisfaction with globalization, which is a means of noncolonial
expansion of influence.^25
Great importance is attributed to the geographic component, which
serves as a basis for land power, inasmuch as land power is one of the
three components of the definition of polar power by which the indepen-
dent variable of system polarity has been established. This fact has led to
the assessment of the degree of territorial expansion of polar powers at the
end of wars in which they participated. I shall therefore turn to discuss
this variable.
SYSTEMIC FACTORS AND EXPANSION OF INFLUENCE OF
POLAR POWERS AT THE ENDS OF WARS
The territorial expansion variable assesses the degree of territorial
expansion, contraction, or status quo ante bellum of polar powers at the
end of wars in which they have participated. This assessment is done