In less than a decade, the infrastructure of a new world order was in place. There was a U.S. policy of containment with respect to communist expansion, backed not just by U.S. troops but also by security agreements with NATO and Japan; the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-shattered economies; the Bretton Woods agreement to provide stability to the world’s financial markets and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to establish rules governing world commerce; U.S. support for the independence of former European colonies; the IMF and World Bank to help integrate these newly independent nations
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