Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

by Noam Chomsky

American planners back in the late 1940s were very well aware of this difference when they sort of organized the post-war world—so while they helped Japan to reindustrialize, they also insisted on controlling its energy resources: the Japanese were not allowed to develop their own petrochemical industry, or to obtain their own independent access to petroleum resources. And the reason for that is explained in now-declassified U.S. internal documents: as George Kennan [State Department official and diplomat], who was one of the major planners of the post-war world, pointed out, if we control Japan’s energy resources, we will have veto power over Japan—if they ever get out of line, we’ll just choke off their energy supply.49 Now, whether or not that plan would still work you don’t know, because the world is changing in unpredictable ways. But for the moment, the United States is still overwhelmingly powerful in world affairs—that’s why we can get away with so much.