The future of the colonial system as assessed by experts of the Council on Foreign Relations during the Second World War

During World War II, the colonial issue was at the forefront of both the fight of the anti-Hitler coalition against the Axis powers and the inter-allied discussion of the prospects for the post-war world order. In this context, the perspectives of the U.S. experts affiliated with the Council on Foreign Relations deserve special attention. Having brought together government officials, bankers, industrialists, Wall Street lawyers, and Ivy League professors, the Council turned into a unique expert platform that exerted a significant influence not only on the course of public discussions about the future world order, but also on the foreign policy decision-making in the United States itself. This article identifies the specific features of experts’ perspectives on the prospects of the development and transformation of the colonial system after World War II. The first section profiles the Council’s members who actively participated in the discussion of these issues. The second section outlines the two main approaches of the Council’s experts to resolving the colonial issue, which involved either reforming the existing colonial system or significantly revising it. At the same time, as the author notes, all experts recognized that the positions of the European colonial powers would be inevitably weakened by the end of World War II and emphasized the need for the U.S. to play a more active role in the colonial issue, not least to counter a possible threat from the USSR. That said, some experts also voiced certain concerns that the inflow of American capital into the former European colonies would be fraught with economic risks that could exceed potential benefits. The author concludes that although most of the forecasts and recommendations considered were fairly general and vague, the Council in general was able to correctly predict the decolonization trend and during the war years reaffirmed its status as one of the most authoritative expert platforms on international relations.

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