The Cold War begin out of the ashes of WWII - Essay Example

1 As the war was coming to an end, the Soviet Union had made it clear at the Yalta conference that they wanted control Eastern Europe and that Germany would be part of the deal. The President of the United States F D Roosevelt had conceded to Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union most of his,2 this was the perception of most Americans. However, with the demise of the President of the United States Franklin D Roosevelt in 1945, the new administration led by Harry S Truman began to feel that the United States was cheated with the deal signed at Yalta.

3 In addition, they blamed the soviets for lack of cooperation in ensuring that they follow the pact to the latter, the soviets were intent on expanding the communist philosophy all over the world. Americans became alarmed, and the president of the united states at that time Harry S Truman, gave an outline of points that reflected united states stand on the Cold War, these policies which he delivered to the Congress in 1947, came to be known as the Truman Doctrine. The British government was heavily weakened by the costs of the Second World War and as a result they could no longer provide material and financial aid to the Turkish government and Greek government.

4 The British government promptly informed the United States government of their predicament, the latter became concerned about the situation of the two nations, as Greek was imminently facing civil war while Turkey was in need of assistance to enable her modernize. The Americans feared that the two nations would eventually fall into the soviet’s communist expansion plan, the then united states under secretary of state Dean Acheson presented to the president arguments, which would counter the communism expansion by the soviets.

He pointed out that when the one country acknowledges communism or perhaps falls into the philosophy of communism, the adjacent countries would follow suit, he noted that Greek’s and Turkey’s neighbors had fallen into the communist trap. Therefore, halting the spread and increase of communism became a major foreign policy of USA, this was known as the American containment policy. The Truman Doctrine pronounced that the United States would pledge financial and material aid both to Greece and to Turkey, to curb the spread of communism and the fall of these two nations into the philosophy of communism.

The Truman Doctrine has also been applied when the United States invaded, annexed and occupied Hawaii.5 He pointed out that Truman and his British allies at the end of the Second World War forced the soviets to relinquish their positions in Iran, and thereafter the president did not want to overthrow the government of Mosaddegh despite persistent requests from Britain. The policy was expanded beyond the two nations and it was spread to encompass Europe and every corner of the globe. The policy became very aggressive and the in turn became America’s formal foreign policy of containing the Soviet’s, they actually did away with the detente policy that was espoused by America’s envoy to Moscow, George Kennan.

As an American policy on foreign relations, the united states were forced to intervene when the soviet forces invaded and attempted to spread communism in Vietnam, Korea and Iran. However, the United States flopped heavily in the wars against the