In recent months there has been much discussion about post-war reconstruction in Ukraine after the conflict there comes to an end. Some politicians, analysts, and pundits on both sides of the Atlantic have called for a “Marshall Plan for Ukraine.” Following the Second World War, the Marshall Plan was an ambitious and innovative strategy to rebuild Europe. It provided more than $15 billion in aid to 17 war-ravaged European countries – and was successful in rebuilding cities, infrastructure, and industry across the continent, including Germany. But, is the Marshall Plan the right model for rebuilding Ukraine? What lessons can be drawn from the implementation of the Marshall Plan 75 years ago?
1014 and the American Council on Germany hosted a discussion with Dr. Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Bruce Stokes, non-resident Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
Dr. Benn Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is the lead writer of the Council’s Geo-Graphics economics blog, and the creator of eight web-based interactives tracking Global Monetary Policy, Global Imbalances, Global Trade, Global Growth, Global Energy, Sovereign Risk, China's Belt and Road, and Central Bank Currency Swaps. Prior to joining the Council in 1999, he was director of the International Economics Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He came to the Institute in 1992 from a Lloyd’s of London Tercentenary Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he received his MPhil and DPhil (PhD) in economics. He also holds a BSc in economics summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Bruce Stokes is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and has served as the Executive Director of the GMFs “Transatlantic Task Force: Together or Alone? Choices and Strategies for Transatlantic Relations for 2021 and Beyond.” He is also a co-author of “Designing Ukraine’s Recovery in the Spirit of the Marshall Plan.” Previously, he was the Director of Global Economic Attitudes at the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, and is a former international economics columnist for the National Journal, a Washington-based public policy magazine.