Trumans Doctrine: Containing Soviet Expansion - Report Example

?Truman’s Doctrine: Containing Soviet Expansion After the end of the Second World War, the allied forces faced various challenges, and conflicts between United States and the USSR, the two wartime allies, started to show up at the very onset of the postwar period. The various issues which were the cause of the differences between the US and the USSR after the Second World War were demilitarization, share of power in conflicting areas and reconstruction of the war affected countries. There were a number of boundary disputes between countries affected by the war, the ideological difference between the US and the USSR only added to the conflicting situation. The relations between Soviet Union and the United States were driven by an interaction of socio-economic, political and ideological differences which led to the deterioration of relationships between the two superpowers of the world. The alliance between the two countries was purely strategic because there was a remarkable difference between the ideologies followed by the two countries. USA was the flag bearer of Capitalism whereas USSR was the country who gave birth to the communist ideology so a clash of interest always existed between the two nations leading to an eternal distrust (Kegley & Blanton, 2011). During the War, the Nazi forces in France, Italy and lower countries of Europe were defeated by the US and British forces whereas the Russian forces defeated the Nazis in Germany and Eastern Europe. The Soviet army continued to occupy the Eastern European states during the wartime and the US or the other Western powers were not in a position to do anything about it at that time. Communist governments were imposed on the Eastern European countries by USSR and Stalin started controlling these states directly and made no secret of it during the various postwar conferences. Germany was also divided into four zones controlled by USSR, USA, Britain and France. USSR considered Germany as a threat to its Communist state because of the past experiences and did not want to create a strong Germany therefore it continued to weaken Eastern Europe by taking equipment and materials (Sulzberger, 1985). The Soviet leadership was afraid of the rapid improvement in the lifestyle of people in the capitalist nations and feared that the expanding capitalism will pose a threat to the communist ideology. As a counter policy USSR started imposing communist governments in the countries controlled by the USSR after the war and communism took hold of most of the Eastern Europe and a few countries in the Far East. Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President of the United States after the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945. Truman had to face a lot of challenges at the very beginning of his days in the office of the President of US and he managed to devise some very efficient policies to put an end to a number of internal and external crises (McCullough, 2003). Truman’s days in the office were marked by the end of the Second World War and he soon became aware of the expansionist expeditions of the Soviet Union. He considered the expansion of the USSR and the conversion of a considerable number of countries to communism a threat to the global peace, security and freedom. Truman set forth a policy in 1947 which clearly stated that the US will give economic and military aid to the countries which were under a threat of falling into the Soviet sphere. In one of his speeches he stated that US would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent USSR to establish a communist government in these countries. This policy of containing the expansion of communism in the world was later termed as Truman’s Doctrine (Calvocressi, 2001). Truman clearly stated the objectives of the Doctrine and made it part of the foreign policy of the United States, in fact the various important decisions of future like the Marshall Plan and the creation of the NATO were also based on the principles laid in the Truman’s Doctrine. The purpose of the doctrine was to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. Truman considered the expansionist motives of the USSR as very dangerous for the global peace because the Soviet government under Stalin wanted to convert the majority of the countries of the world to communism but this was not acceptable to the Western countries including the US (London, 1980). Turkey and Greece were the first two countries to get benefitted from this policy of economic and military aid. Greece was being supported by Britain for a very long time, however after the war Britain was no longer in a position to help Greece out so the US was asked to intervene. The situation in Greece was critical because the Greek Communist Party which was funded by the neighboring communist states declared a civil war against the internationally recognized government of the country. Under these circumstances it was imperative to help out the country to fight against the external oppression. $400 million were granted to Greece after the approval of the Congress. Truman’s policy of providing aid to the countries which were under a threat of falling into communist rule turned out to be very successful as the government in Greece managed to defeat the Greek Communist Party. Soviet influence on Turkey to get a strategic passage between Black Sea and Mediterranean was changing to oppressive pressure and thus the US was forced to provide aid to Turkey so that it can resist the pressure from the Soviet states; $100 million were given to Turkey in economic and military aid (Spalding, 2006). The policy formulated by Truman was the driving force behind the various important decisions which later led to the emergence of Cold War. The Marshal plan under which more than $1.5 billion were reserved for providing economic and military aid to various countries to fight communism was also a continuity of the Truman’s Doctrine. The establishment of NATO is also attributed to the Truman’s Doctrine because the policy of containing the communist expansion was first established by Truman (Duignan, 2000). The consequences of this policy on the global peace and security were long lasting. The defensive measures taken by the West lead by the US were considered by the communist bloc as an aggression against the communist countries. Stalin continued to enforce his stronghold over all the communist states and created organizations like the Warsaw Pact and Comecon (Council of mutual economic aid) against NATO and other Western Alliances (Bostdorff, 2008). The expansionist measures taken by the USSR are considered as the most important reason behind the polarization of the world into two blocs after the Second World War, however the real polarization took place after the formulation of the Truman’s Doctrine because the communist expansion was considered as a threat to global peace and security for the first time. It had a number of positive impacts on the World Politics, most important of which is the establishment of various states in Western Europe as strong states capable of resisting all kinds of external pressures. The dying culture and the freedom of various nations in the world was preserved and modernization was launched through these policies. The only disadvantage of the policy was the aggression which USSR adopted in reaction to the containment which led to political crisis in various countries. In the wake of containing Soviet expansion, many alliances were formed which turned out to be very useful and productive for the whole world till this very day. Organizations like NATO which are playing a very productive role in preserving global peace and security were established as a result of the principles of foreign policy mentioned in the Truman’s Doctrine therefore the world is still enjoying the advantages of Truman’s doctrine. References Bostdorff, D. (2008). Proclaiming the Truman Doctrine: the Cold War call to arms. Texas A&M University Press. Calvocoressi, P. (2001). World Politics, 1945 - 2000. Pearson Education. Duignan, P. (2000). NATO: its past, present, and future. Hoover Press. Kegley, C., & Blanton, S. (2011). World Politics Trends and Transformations. Cengage Learning. London, K. (1980). The Soviet Union in world politics. Taylor and Francis. McCullough, D. (2003). Truman. Simon and Schuster. Spalding, E. (2006). The first cold warrior: Harry Truman, containment, and the remaking of liberal internationalism. University Press of Kentucky. Sulzberger, C. (1985). World War II. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Read More