Was the US policy of ‘Containment’ a success or a failure?
It was in a speech made by the 33rd President of the United States of America, Harry Truman in which he announced a policy that would undoubtedly shape the way his nation would be looked at for much of the century (or at least the half of it that remained). It was in this speech that he announced his very own Doctrine, intended to "to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”, to save the “free peoples” of Eastern Europe from the monster known as Communism, a political ideology born out of the Russian Revolution of 1917, that had spread somewhat like a plague, throughout the lands in the East, which Stalin and
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Initially, American leaders were unsure about how exactly containment would be implemented. Would it be applied everywhere? Would it involve economic aid to help nations reconstruct their economies? Would it involve military confrontation? The answer was to come soon.
In June 1947, the United States announced the Marshall Plan, intended to help economic recovery in Europe and thus prevent the spread of Communism in a Europe that was increasingly becoming “a breeding ground of hate”, thus providing a comforting environment for the rise of the Marxist ideology. At first, the Marshall Plan seemed to be a success, with economic aid worth $17 billion being made available to Europe and ensuring the protection of democratic governments in Turkey and Greece. Marshall Aid did help economic recovery in Europe, erasing unemployment and improving living standards greatly. Most Western European nations were happy to accept American aid in order to redevelop their economies. However, Stalin forbade any Eastern European countries from accepting the Plan and setup organizations like the Cominform and Comecon instead, to further tighten Stalin’s grip over Eastern Europe.
One of containment’s major aims was also to ensure that West Germany and West Berlin could get its economy back on track to prevent the infiltration of Communism from East Germany, controlled by the Soviets. In 1946, the Allied zones of Germany were combined
The Berlin Blockade and Airlift portrayed containment by splitting up Germany, flying supplies over to East Berlin, and making
Marshall Plan- The Marshall Plan was a plan on financial aid created by the United States. This plan was proposed by George Marshall, the United States Secretary of State. The Marshall Plan, also known as the Europe Recovery Program, was implemented from 1948 to 1951. The Plan was created to help restore Europe’s economy after WWI. The Marshall Plan was important because it helped restore Europe’s economy and stopped the spread of Soviet communism
The United States obtained the general policy of containment from George Kennan. He sent what is known as the Long telegram. This is where the United States got the idea of containing Soviet expansion of communism. The United States policy of containment was present in the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the Korean War, and the Berlin Airlift. Each event had a different version or practice of containing.
The speech was created primarily Charles Bohlen, a Soviet expert and Marshall’s special assistant, and later revised by Marshall. Department officials, including George Kennan and William Clayton saw the Marshall Plan as a way of restricting Communist growth in Europe, by strengthening the struggling democratic European nations . After the end of WWII in 1945, the majority of Europe was in ruins; over a third of the European industry was destroyed by the war, resulting in weak economies, and millions of people unemployed and starving, causing low morale. As economies were not improving at a rapid enough pace, combined with high unemployment and a hungry population, people started to look for change. Communism began to look promising, and was becoming increasingly popular in Europe through rebels and partisans. In an attempt confine the spread of Communism, Marshall was sent to Moscow to negotiate with Stalin. Initially, Stalin welcomed the possibility of Soviet participation in a U.S funded European reconstruction program. However, Stalin opposed the “idea of a coordinated multilateral aid programme, which was seen to threaten the Soviet political and economic position in Eastern Europe”, and withdrew all support and insisted that
Although these are not all the details of our containment attempt they are the most severe. Protecting countries we considered free, providing supplies to ensure needy countries didn’t turn to communism, and the threat of missiles were the most prominent examples. Understanding the past and how we acted in times of panic is key to understanding our reactions in the present and
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
According to an article written by Clif Staten he asserts that John Lewis Gaddis has argued that the history of our containment policy toward the Soviet Union reflected the swing of a pendulum between periods when our resources did not match our ever-expanding goals and periods that required us to react to this deficit by either reducing, redefining or reprioritizing our goals to bring them in line with our limited resources. He continues to argue that the pendulum swing is illustrative of the shift between our idealist and realist sides. In the early years of the Cold War, our foreign policy goals focused on containing communism in Europe. We recognized that our resources were limited. We had been demobilizing since the end of World War II and the American public had reverted to its traditional isolationist character. Containment was limited only to Western Europe where our military strength was greatest.
All of the cold war presidents have different but similar policies and deal with the aid of many less fortunate countries. Truman and Eisenhower focused on the policy of containment, which is the strategy to prevent the spread of communism(Ayers 818). Kennedy focused on flexible response, which is strengthening the U.S. forces so the U.S. would have other options for weapons(Ayers 886). All the presidents were worried about the idea of domino theory. Domino theory is theory that if one country would fall to communism the others around it would too (Ayers 950). Harry S. Truman was the first cold war president.
During the Cold War, America's basic policy was that of "containment" of the Soviet Union. The policy of containment was based upon several principles. First, the Soviet Union wanted to spread socialism to all areas of the world. However, it was felt that the leadership of the Soviet Union felt no particular rush to accomplish their goal. "The Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of a long-term validity, and it can afford to be patient. (Hook and Spanier, 42)." In other words, the Soviet leadership believed that, since their ideas were the correct ones, they would eventually prevail, and thus, no direct confrontation would be
After World War Two, the United States government was very apprehensive about the spread of communism(Nash 592). The post war landscape saw the failing of the colonial powers with many former colonies achieving independence. Communism or socialism appealed to some of these countries and the U.S. worried that communism would spread to neighboring countries and viewed this expansion as a threat to democracy. America responded to this threat of expansion with the policy of containment. A government report in 1950 stated that “the goals of containment were to block further expansion of the soviet union, expose the falsities of soviet pretensions, induce a retraction of the kremlin's control and influence, and foster the seeds of destruction
After the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II it was apparent that the victors would come out as the new world powers. With the United States and the Soviet Union being the strongest nations of the victorious Allies they were the two countries who emerged as the new world powers but their views varied drastically. The Democratic United States and the Communist Soviets butted heads about each others views and the U.S. wanted to halt the spread of communism so it couldn’t get to the rest of the world. The U.S. adopted a policy of containment to keep communism in the USSR and the other places it had spread. The U.S.’s main goal was to prevent the spread of communism and they did everything
This was known as The Policy of Containment.
The Containment Policy established by George W. Bush after the Gulf War is the most viable option for the United States. The Containment Policy strictly sustains the status quo, and is inexpensive in terms of blood, money, and political capital.The Containment Policy will halter the making of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and will ensure free oil flow from the Gulf, while preventing Iraq from threatening its neighbors. For this reason, a political strategy of containment is comparatively advantageous to the alternative. This essay will begin by examining the effect of no-fly zones on the Iraqi discussing the strategic viability of sanctions and their effect on the Iraqi economy, finally explaining the importance of oil in Iraq 's economy.
2. After WWII, Germany was divided into four zones. West Germany was occupied by the U.S., Britain, and France. Whereas East Germany was occupied by the Soviet Union. Berlin
Famine and unemployment, coupled with the near destruction of the continent’s infrastructure left Europe on the brink of economic collapse and starvation. America began supplying financial aid to Europe immediately after the end of the war, George C. Marshall developed the first piece of foreign policy that would serve to not only assist in the rebuilding of Europe, but also counter the growing communist influence on the continent. “Marshall was convinced the key to restoration of political stability lay in the revitalization of national economies. Further he saw political stability in Western Europe as a key to blunting the advances of communism in that region.” http://marshallfoundation.org/marshall/the-marshall-plan/history-marshall-plan/