[IronJack]

If we go to war for purely economic reasons, wouldn't it have made more sense to ally with Hitler in 1939? After all, he had big plans to build the Reich into a utopia. And we could have sold him the nuts and bolts. Just the construction of the New Berlin would have made us billions.

Instead, we SPENT billions rebuilding Germany and Japan, and in fact enabled them to become our economic rivals.

So the "hegemony" argument really doesn't hold water. Not that it would be horrible if it did.

[Tallguy]

That is one of those historical decisions that could have gone either way. I read one explanation — take it for what it’s worth — that FDR’s policy during the Lend-Lease period could be interpreted as the culmination of the Monroe Doctrine. The Brits lost their most strategic bases in the Caribbean in exchange for 50 obsolete destroyers. Plus we got bases in Bermuda, Iceland and a bunch of other places — all at the expense of an overstretched British Empire.

Recall that when the Monroe Doctrine was conceived it was mostly aimed at France, Spain & the Neatherlands as the USN was then not up to the task of ejecting the English RN. The genius of it, was that the Brits realized it and actually reinforced the policy at the expense of the others.