Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

by Tony Judt

Vietminh. In effect, the USA underwrote post-war French economic modernization while France dedicated its own scarce resources to the war. From 1950, American aid took a more direct form. Starting in July of that year (one month after the outbreak of war in nearby Korea) the US sharply increased its military assistance to French forces in South-East Asia. The French bargained hard before consenting to support the doomed European defense project and conceding West German membership in NATO: what they got in return (for allowing the US to protect them, as it seemed to aggrieved Washington insiders) was very substantial American military aid. Of all the European states France, by 1953, was by far the most dependent on US support, in cash and kind alike.