Britain's wartime finance extended beyond its debt to the United States. Canada, Australia, South Africa, and other dominions also supplied loans and financial support during the First World War. In the Second, the sterling area depended on Malayan rubber and other earnings that disappeared after the Japanese conquest, followed by another shock when the United States abruptly ended Lend-Lease. Marshall Aid helped rebuild damaged infrastructure, but Britain used it more conservatively than West Germany used its assistance for industrial development. The argument presents postwar decline as the accumulation of war finance, lost earnings, physical damage, and cautious investment decisions.
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Britain's wartime finance and layered postwar shocks
Britain's decline is presented as the cumulative result of imperial war finance, the loss of Malayan earnings, abrupt Lend-Lease cancellation, physical damage, and cautious use of Marshall Aid.