The Containment Of The Cold War

The alliances the USSR and the U.S. made with other countries changed their relationship. In 1947, the United States President Harry Truman created a foreign policy called the Truman doctrine. It explained the U.S. would help with economic, political, and military to all nations under threat from a communist force (Document 2). The U.S. had sent help to Greece and Turkey. The doctrine contain areas under the USSR’s control. The Marshall Plan was created to

Skilt took a deep breath, pulled back the arrow in his bow, aimed, and prayed to the great spirit that he would hit his target as he released his breath, and the arrow.

The Cold War was a time of tension, in which the hostility was approximated to have begun in 1947 continuing into the early 1990’s, between the two major superpowers at that time, the USSR and the United States. This period was a time of civil unrest that was caused by the differing views of the opposing country's leader. During this time the USSR continued to be a Communist based state with Marxist-Leninist views where the communist party controlled the press, economy, and military.While the United States maintained the classic capitalistic views, they still practice today with free press and independent organizations. The Non-Aligned Movement created a small neutral bloc in order to remain on good terms with both by not picking sides.Both sides were ready for war but did not follow through due to the threat of mutually assured destruction.

During the beginning stages of the Cold War, the United States fought communism on two separate fronts: Europe and Asia. After Stalin implemented communist governments in Eastern Europe and banned free elections, the United States decided that it needed to start a strategy of containment. First introduced by George Kennan in 1946, containment was a policy of preventing the spread of communism in other parts of the world, including Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, and Korea. Though commonly associated with the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, early Cold War containment affected more than just the Europeans. Containment took on a completely different role in Asia, especially in the United State’s stance towards China. Containment strategies

Prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and United State’s involvement in World War II, we remained an isolationist country. Once World War II ended, the United States left isolationism behind and began a quest to abolish communism during the Cold War, involving many nations. Although the success of the containment policy in South America and Asia was not identical, each were beneficial in decreasing communism during the Cold War.

During cold war times, the US’ had a theory of containment. Containment made to stop the spread of communism, because it was thought that if the US could not stop communist countries than it could work on stopping communism from spreading. In 1954, Vietnam was able to become independent from France. The country was divided along the 17th parallel, and North Vietnam and South Vietnam were created. Ho Chi Minh led North Vietnam and it had a communistic government, which was supported by China and the USSR. On the other hand, South Vietnam was a ‘democratic’ (anti-communism) government, which was led by Ngo Dinh Diem and supported by the US.

The Cold War and the reality of nuclear weapons shaped the U.S. foreign policy from the end of the Second World War up to, and including, the War in Vietnam. However, the reality of nuclear weapons did not help America to have an effective foreign policy. After the end of World War II, the President of the United States of America, Harry S. Truman, embraced a policy of communist containment (Heineman 72). This policy sought to limit the expansion of the Soviet Union. As such, the foreign policy of the U.S. fought communism. In doing so, America help those countries in Europe which are torn by war to return to prosperity. Despite U.S. Cold War foreign policy around the 1940s, Democratic liberals were uncomfortable with the idea that the U.S.

The Truman Doctrine was the first, formal statement by a US president that America would intervene in the affairs of the world in a formal and consistent manner. It was the death knell of American isolationism and was an open acknowledgement of America's position as a world power willing to take aggressive action in international affairs. Truman unambiguously characterized the Soviet Union as evil, casting America's commitment to aid the Greek government against communist insurgents in a moral light (Coffey 1984: 233).

When most people think of war they think of blood, violence, and death, however the Cold War was a different kind of war. The textbook describes the Cold War as a high tense military, political, and economic struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union going on from 1949 to 1991. (Ayers, et al 822). The presidents used containment to help fight against the spread of communism. Containment is a United States policy made in the late 1940’s to stop the spread of communism by providing economic and military aid (Ayers, et al R94). Harry S. Truman, the first of three presidents that were involved in the Cold War, favored economic aid. Dwight D. Eisenhower, a past military general, thought military use was the answer to solving the world

The Truman Doctrine first announced in March 1947 by Harry S. Truman, would essentially give aid to Greece and Turkey, so that they would resist communism. The Soviet Union, saw this as a threat, and looked at it as the United States trying to influence other countries, and turn them away from communism. The second reform that was put into place, was the Marshall Plan on March 30, 1948. Similar to the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan provided aid to countries, western european countries, after the end of the world war, in order for them to rebuild themselves. The Soviet Union was invited to join in the giving of aid to Europe, but they refused. It would have been very easy for these countries to turn to communism and the United States realized this, and

in Hanhimäki & Westad, 2003, p. 106). He detailed the threat of communism, and Congress quickly agreed to allocate the requested $400 million to prevent the fall of Greece and Turkey to the communists (Keylor, 2011, p. 263). Truman also stated, “it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (qtd. in Keylor, 2011, p. 263). The Truman Doctrine effectively reoriented U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States, to one of possible intervention in far away conflicts. The Truman Doctrine became the official policy of the United States, and it had far-reaching repercussions. It drove the wedge between the U.S. and the Soviet Union much deeper, thus polarizing the world. Other nations and regions essentially had to choose between supporting the United States or the Soviet Union. The Truman Administration made further attempts to contain the Soviet threat with the Marshall Plan. Much of Western Europe was economically crippled by WWII and showed little hope of recovery. The widespread poverty, soaring unemployment, and limited potential

What was the policy of “Containment” in the Cold War? How was it used and

The Cold War is the closest the world has ever come to complete destruction. In this period of time, two world super powers were in a stalemate economically and militarily and were constantly competing to be the superior. The Cold War started as result of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had some differences on their perspectives of the world. United States being the richest country in the world promoted democracy and capitalism in the world. The newly formed Soviet Union thought that communism was a better political system because it transformed their economy and status in the world from nothing but a declining empire to a super power once again. The Cold War was a long series of events in which the communist tried to

2 years after World War 2 a new enemy was rising that was not just a country or person but communism. Following the end of WW2, the Soviets were spreading their new ideology to several small countries from Poland to north Korea. As communism gained in popularity the US became increasingly concerned about a potential fall in capitalism and democracy. This fear resulted in the Cold War: a social, political, economic conflict between the US and the USSR. The Cold War lasted 44 years and 9 different Presidencies. However, when looking at the US, the war can be broken down into 3 smaller time periods each with their own different methods to best the USSR. The first time period is now called the Containment Period and was introduced with Harry

After WWII, the U.S. became fully interventionist. US interventionism was motivated primarily to contain the spread and influence of communism and made us a leader in global security, economic and social issues. We then entered into the Cold War. President Truman’s Containment policy was the first major policy during the Cold War and used numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad.