Speech by Secretary of State George Marshall initiating the aid program known as the Marshall Plan, 1947 “Europe’s requirements for the next three or four years of foreign food and other essential products—principally from America—are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character. . . . It is logical that the United States should do whatever it is able to do to assist in the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”

The ideas expressed in the excerpt were most directly motivated by the
A concerns about the need for mass mobilization in future conflicts
B desire to export more agricultural goods to Europe
C tensions created by the outcome of the First World War
D devastation left by the Second World War