The Cold War : American Foreign Policy

Even though the United States emerged as a clear victor of World War I, many Americans after the war felt that their involvement in the conflict had been a mistake (Markus Schoof, “The American Experience During World War II,” slide 3). This belief, however, did not deter the country from engaging in many other international affairs in the future, most importantly the WWII and the Cold War. Right from the Manifest Destiny, which led to expand its empire at home and abroad, to the World War I, the country had come a long way from being somewhat a lonely-land to a global superpower of the 20th century. Its influence in the international arena grew unprecedently after its commitment to the World War II, and like they say, the rest is history. If the WWII was a resounding success to the American legacy, what followed, the Cold War, put many implications on the American diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and to the world. Although the rising Fascism in Europe and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drove the U.S. to enter the WWII, historians over the years have laid equal blames on both nations for starting the Cold War. These two events helped in shaping up many domestic and foreign policies for the U.S.

“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This declaration, made by former President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, is part of the Truman Doctrine, and was the basis for U.S. involvement in Western Europe throughout the Cold War. Although the North Atlantic Treaty, and the resulting North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was established during the Cold War “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” NATO has persisted since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. This essay will seek to examine the U.S. decision to create and participate in NATO. It will begin by providing a history of NATO and the U.S. decision to participate in NATO before considering how this decision is both an instance of continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy since former President George Washington’s Farewell Address. The essay will conclude by considering the legacy of this decision and its impact on U.S. foreign policy. While this essay will consider the period of time leading up to the formation of NATO and will briefly touch on the present day, greatest consideration will be paid to the time period immediately preceding and following the formation of NATO in 1949.

George Kennan's containment plan is a radical shift in the U.S foreign policy when the Policy of the United States towards the Soviet Union prior, and during the World War II is considered. The containment policy marks the shift of American foreign policy towards the Soviets from alliance to deterrence. Kennan's states in the Long Telegram, "USSR still lives in antagonistic "capitalist encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence." (Citation needed) only two years after the end of World War II, a war both the U.S and the Soviet Union fought side by side for a common ambition. If the aspect of radical shift in the U.S foreign policy is seen from a post-Cold War perspective, another radical change can

After World War 2, faith in the United States government was at an all time high. A brief, superficial, and weak understanding of the history on the aftermath of World War 2 leads the reader to understand that not only did the United States help defeat the evil Nazis, the fascist Italians, and the imperial Japanese. In the wake of World War 2, the United States of America ended up cementing itself as a world power – if not the world power, usurping the empty throne previously held by Great Britain and subsequently sharing it with the Soviet Union. Yet as is typical, there can never be two champions. There can never be two reigning super victors – one of the two powers had to lose. So began the conflict that never was, the cold war – a global chess match of attrition. Neither the USSR nor the USA would outright engage in conflicts with one another, but in the thirst and pursuit for more influence and power, they continually opposed each other through pawn states on a global scale for approximately 44 years. This type of warfare was known as ‘proxy’ warfare, and though the dates specifically for the Cold War are not known, the common dates for the war range from 1947 to 1991. With this understanding, it can also be inferred that it was not just a war for power, it was a war of ideologies.

The role of America at the end of World War II was where the origins of policing the world originate. America had been engaged in a very costly war in terms of dollars as well as lives. But, despite the expense the United States came out of World War II better than any other nation that was involved. The Second World War was a battle between the Allied and Axis Powers. The Allied Powers consisted of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and France. This war was seen as the fight against Nazi Germany, and therefore resulted in a majority of the battles fought on German and Russian soil. The aftermath left the Soviet Union in bad shape. Close to twenty million Russians

Winston Churchill indignantly bolstered the American public with a phrase that would be remembered for many years to come: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” This line was what Americans labeled as the start of containment, the start of a new era, especially that of the war on communism later entitled the “Cold War.” However, it was not just this flimsy line that buttressed the supporters of democracy; the true motivator of containment was rather the “Long Telegram,” an eight-thousand-word telegram sent by American ambassador to the Soviet Union, George F. Kennan, to the White House. Albeit inspirational, the “Iron Curtain” speech failed miserably to do the one thing that the “Long Telegram” did: set the policy of containment in place with a purely American ideology. With this telegram, the United States started its trek dedicated to remaining the second world power of the time by reducing the Soviet Union’s power as to not constitute a constant communist threat, changing the rules of international conduct so the Soviet Union would not dominate the globe, and eventually fostering a world environment in which an American system could survive and flourish.

There has never been a direct war between the United States and the Soviet Union. That’s how the Cold War got its name. On June 25, 1950 the first military action of the Cold War started. It was the between two states in Korea, the North and South, this war is also known as the Korean War. Although the war was called the Korean War, it was actually between the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s controversies in their way of govern. The United States supported South Korea because they were Nationalist and the Soviet supported North Korea, who were Communist. Earlier in China, there was an identical disagreement about the governmental system between the United States and the Soviet Union. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States,

The objective of ‘the U.S. foreign policy’ course is to develop personal ability for applying IR theories to the U.S. foreign policy. Then, students will be able to understand the direction as well as the grounds of the U.S. foreign policy. To achieve this objective, I will discuss major the theoretical issues through the brief history of the U.S. foreign policy until the Cold War. After that, I will examine the challenges which the U.S. confronts.

Elizabeth Edwards Spalding, argues that Truman’s principles, expectations, decision, and policies not only gave rise to and defined containments content, but also shaped America’s understanding of the Cold War and as a result of this fundamental role, it is right to say that Harry S. Truman was the first cold war warrior. Truman’s containment strategy also provided the grounds for a new liberal internationalism. For Truman, international meant that American leadership was central as his ideas and policies stemmed from a multifaceted definition of peace, composed of freedom, justice, and order.

When one U.S. historian wrote, “the Cold War was undoubtedly the most significant factor shaping the American experience during the second half of the twentieth century”, they were likely referring to the Cold War’s colossal influence on American economics, military buildup, and social climate. The Cold War’s effect on these three topics resulted in a back and forth between the United States and its citizens, leaving the nation completely different than it had been at the midpoint of the century. In addition, the Cold War’s widespread effects were heightened by the fact that it also happened to span decades, officially ending in nineteen ninety-one.

In John Gaddis’s 2005 book, ‘The Cold War, a New History’,3 Gaddis identifies that from the 1930’s, the Soviet Union and the Western allies were already at ‘war’ with each other ideologically and geopolitically, if not military. Thus it was the ending of the military campaign against Hitler’s Nazi Germany, which had previously unified these opposing ideologies, that triggered the onset of the Cold War. Gaddis theorises that the USA could not continue to serve as a model for the rest of the world after the War had ended, while remaining apart from the rest of the world. American practices of isolationism had become untenable as a result of the War and previously suppressed feelings of anxiety by the USA over Soviet expansion and the spread

This article written by George Kennedy is essentially a review of the United States Government's views on the Soviet situation. It introduces the idea of a policy of containment which ultimately was going to be the way America would battle the Cold War with the Soviet Union.

With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War

In The Sources of Soviet Conduct, George F. Kennan explained “Containment was the central post-war concept of the United States and its allies in dealing with the Soviet Union”. To contain communism, the United Stated strategy was to have a strong

The term “Cold War” refers to the second half of the 20th century, usually from the end of the World War II until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since the 1940s and 1950s the scholars have disagreed on the topic of the origins of the Cold War. There are several groups of historians and their interpretations are very different, sometimes even contradictory. The three main schools are the orthodox, the revisionist and the realist. The classification is not completely accurate because we can find several differences in theories of scholars within the same group and often the authors reevaluated their ideas over time.