375 



range management, fertilization, reforestation, land reclamation, and 

 extraction of mineral values from the Dead Sea. 



Another effort that has received less attention was the 1944 mission 

 to China of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. A team of engineers 

 visited Chungking to study the upper reaches of the Yangtze River to 

 explore the possibility of a national program of regional development. 

 The team sketched out a billion-dollar project to irrigate 60 million 

 acres, generate more than 10 million kilowatts of firm power, and open 

 navigation on the river from Shanghai to Chungking. 15 



By the close of World War II, regionalism had become the ortho- 

 dox philosophy of planning for large-scale public works. Water re- 

 source projects in the United States generally conformed to this 

 pattern, emphasized alike in reports of the Hoover Commission, the 

 plans of the Bureau of Reclamation and Corps of Engineers, and 

 congressional studies. 16 An endless stream of foreign visitors to the 

 TVA took home with them the notion of comprehensive planning for 

 whole river drainage basins. 17 



However, TVA was a special case — a capital-intensive development 

 program in a lagging region of a nation affluent and technologically 

 advanced. The people of the region were culturally receptive to the 

 project and the opportunities it offered to them. Four questions 

 emerged: (1) What elements of the special case of TVA regionalism 

 were suitable for export? (2) What new elements needed to be added 

 to improve the acceptability and effectiveness of multinational region- 

 alism? (3) What should be the roles of the various United Nations 

 organizations? and (4) How would the superpowers relate to multi- 

 national regionalism ? 



From the point of view of the United States in the period follow- 

 ing World War II, two primary objectives were to be sought in the 

 encouragement of regional association of foreign nations : economic 

 development as a counter to communist penetration, and mutual secu- 

 rity pacts to deter the application of overt military force in support of 

 communist penetration. However, as the image of monolithic world 

 communism faded, a more complex view of regionalism became possi- 

 ble, and a variety of alternative forms of international regionalism 

 could be identified. 



One form of regional development to which the United States has 

 contributed substantially in the past, and to which it continues to con- 

 tribute, involves the direct construction of civil works. However, this 

 construction has been undertaken without careful consideration of 

 the social consequences, and without the precondition of a partnership 

 among the nations participating in the project. One example of this 

 kind of regional development is the economic development of the 

 Indus River Basin, centering on water project development in India 

 and West Pakistan. A purpose of U.S. aid in this instance was to 

 help build an economic basis for cooperation between two countries 



16 Frank P. Huddle, "Development of China," Editorial Research Reports I (1945), 

 p. 137. 



18 See, for example, "Congressional Decisions on Water Projects," Technical Information 

 for Congress (Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office), pp. 426-467. 



"According to the Washington office of TVA, a total of 1,5.35 visitors from Southeast 

 Asia inspected the TVA operation from 1960 to 1965, and 1,327 more between 1966 and 

 1972. 



