And don't forget the downside of altruism,
ie, people with bad judgement brutalizing
other countries to "fix" them.
I think some people would have been content with more peaceful methods, such as sending foreign aid. The Marshall Plan was supposed to help fix some of the damage, and we also pumped a lot of money into West Germany and Japan. In places where dollar diplomacy failed, we resorted to gunboat diplomacy, which had mixed results.