At least as far as development goes, the United States supercharged the postwar economy in Japan which directly lead to where it is today. If, say Indiana got the same investment, it too would look like Japan today with high speed maglev rail criss crossing like a fisherman's net and be a dominant position in high tech manufacturing.

And if we bombed Indiana to the brink of collapse and burned Indianapolis to the ground and nuked Terre Haute, maybe we'd do that.