Dependency theory has long focused on the structural subordination of the Global South to the industrialized North. Far less attention, however, has been paid to relations of dependency within the advanced capitalist world itself. Ali A. Mazrui was one of the few thinkers to identify and theorize this neglected dimension. Mazrui (1981, 329) argued that the post–Second World War international order was characterized not only by North–South dependency but also by a similarly hierarchical form of dependency operating inside the Global North itself — one centered on the United States. He called the latter macrodependency.

Mazrui’s intervention challenged a liberal framework in International Relations (IR) that was subsequently to become influential: the theory of complex interdependence associated with Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye (1977). While Keohane and Nye emphasized mutual dependence and reciprocal vulnerability among advanced industrial states, Mazrui insisted and highlighted that this interdependence was deeply asymmetrical. In his view, postwar interdependence was structured around American dominance in which allies were integrated into U.S.-led institutions that constrained their autonomy while reinforcing U.S. primacy. According to Mazrui (1976; 1981), macrodependency in the postwar international order assumed three principal and mutually reinforcing forms. Together, these forms structured a distinctive hierarchy within the Global North — one that differed from classical imperial domination, yet nonetheless produced durable patterns of dependence.

The first form was economic, institutionalized most clearly through the Marshall Plan beginning in 1948. The European Recovery Program is often celebrated as a benevolent act of American generosity that enabled Western Europe’s rapid reconstruction after the devastation of the Second World War. Mazrui did not deny the reality or significance of European recovery. On the contrary, he acknowledged that the Marshall Plan succeeded in stabilizing currencies, rebuilding industrial capacity, and preventing political collapse. Yet, he emphasized that recovery came at a structural cost. Western Europe was reinserted into the global economy through institutions and rules overwhelmingly shaped by the United States. Dollar hegemony, U.S. leadership in the Bretton Woods institutions, and American influence over trade liberalization embedded European economies within a U.S.-centered financial and monetary architecture. Economic revival thus coincided with a reconfiguration of dependence, not its elimination.

The second form of macrodependency was military, consolidated through the creation of NATO in 1949. Formally, NATO was a collective defense alliance among sovereign equals. Substantively, however, it institutionalized American strategic leadership over Western Europe. Security guarantees were indispensable, particularly in the context of Soviet power — but they came with limits on European strategic autonomy. Key decisions regarding nuclear deterrence, force posture, and alliance priorities rested largely with Washington. NATO exemplified how dependence could be normalized and legitimized through multilateral institutions. Military protection reduced vulnerability to external threats, but simultaneously entrenched reliance on U.S. leadership and constrained the emergence of........

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