Stardate 20011022.0816 (On Screen): At the end of World War I, after Germany had been defeated, one of the most misbegotten treaties in history was negotiated, the Treaty of Versailles. Among many, many other horrible aspects of that treaty, one in particular was that Germany was obligated to pay reparations to France for the damage done by the war. Germany's economy was in shambles, and the reparations lead to further damage which ultimately caused hyper-inflation, destroying the value of the Mark. This lead to a fertile breeding ground for nationalists and extremists, and the National Socialist Party, led by one Adolph Hitler, was elected -- and ultimately it was necessary to fight another major war in Europe. President Roosevelt led the US during most of that war. He was an amazing man, but one of the things which stands out about him was that he had a genius for picking subordinates. Out of a sterling group, one stands out: General George Marshall. He was head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and it was originally intended that
he would lead Operation Overlord. But Roosevelt decided he couldn't spare him from Washington, so Eisenhower got the job. After Roosevelt's death, Truman became President, and after Marshall left his position as the head of the JCS, Truman made Marshall his Secretary of State, possibly the finest one of the 20th century. Marshall recognized that it was vital to avoid the mistakes which had been made after WWI; it was necessary to make sure that there would not be a third war in Europe caused by the recovery from the second. So he proposed something novel: the US, one of the victors (and the only major nation whose industrial base was undamaged in the war) would offer aid to all nations involved in the war, friend and enemy alike, to rebuild their economies. This was the famous Marshall Plan, and it succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
World War II is notable for another totally unrelated event. In New Guinea and the Solomon islands, there was brutal fighting between the allied forces (primarily Australian and American) and the Japanese. This was one of many theaters where the importance of the C-47 air transport plane became paramount; as the allies advanced, they'd build airfields and bring supplies in with the Goonie Birds. The allies had a policy of trying to treat the natives well, so some of what came in by plane was distributed to them. The natives didn't understand where this wealth came from but they liked it. To them, it seemed as if the foreigners were performing some sort of elaborate ritual that made cargo appear; this seemed to involve the creation of mystic places called "air fields" and the performance of magic rituals by people called "air traffic controllers". After the war, all that ended (obviously) but some of the natives wanted it to continue. So they built what they thought looked like air fields and did all the things they had seen the soldiers do, in hopes of making planes full of cargo descend from the heavens. The problem was that they got cause-and-effect backwards: the air fields were created because the planes needed somewhere to land -- but the natives thought that creation of an airfield summoned the planes. These were the cargo cults. Somehow or other, it never seemed to work. No matter how well they built their air fields, no matter how they tried to simulate the behavior of the ground crews, the C-47's never seemed to arrive.
The nations of Africa, having failed to extort aid from the West by 
accusing them of being racist slavers, have decided to create a cargo-cult version of the Marshall Plan. They will organize themselves into a group of recipient nations, and then wait for the nations of the west to shower them with aid. I think they don't understand the concept here: the Marshall Plan was organized by the donor, not by the recipients. (discuss)
