Was the United States Policy of Containment Successful - Essay Example

Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : xxxxxxxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx @2012 Introduction The United States containment policy refers to the strategic policy of the late 1940s and early 1950s that was meant to contain as well as prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union through political, economic, diplomatic and military means. The policy was a component of the Cold War responding to a string of moves made by the Soviet Union in order to increase the influence of communism in Vietnam, China, Korea and Eastern Europe. The policy had two major strategies. One of the strategies was the economic approach and the other was the military approach. According to Fienberg (2007), this policy idea compared communism to water arguing that if it was not contained or prevented, it would trickle into nations that were weak and unstable. In response therefore, the United States had to reinforce the strength of other countries around the globe so as to protect democracy and the free market. Since then, a number of debates have arisen deliberating whether this policy was indeed a success. This paper therefore intends to analyze whether the United States policy of containment was really a success. The U.S policy of containment can be argued to have been successful, based on its considerable success in Europe. Foremost, as an economic approach to deal with the expansion of communism, the Marshall Plan which was a framework of the policy was very useful. The plan helped Europe recuperate from the effects of the Second World War, as a result, becoming successful again. The Marshall plan was undertaken by submitting more than 10% of the budget for federal government which was 3% of the national gross product of the United States to aid for European countries. Shulman (1987) highlights that the Marshall aid generally brought about economic development, created employment opportunities and improved standards of living. According to Shulman (1987), the restoration of the economies of Western Europe and the political confidence through the Marshall plan, initiated the establishment of the Atlantic Alliance that eventually gave organizational expression to the defense of shared democratic values, as well as providing a stimulus and encouragement towards the creation of supranational institutions for the management of political, economic and military collaboration. Secondly the policy successfully enabled Greece and Turkey to resist the communist takeover. Greece and Turkey were both greatly influenced by communist ideologies. For instance the Greek communist group used to obtain military aid initially from Tito (Yugoslavia), later on Greece was given aid by the Soviet Union. In addition both countries had similar experiences whereby they both went through the occupation of the Nazi. The U.S managed to implement some of the ideologies of the containment policy in the two states. The containment policy had a framework or doctrine referred to as enunciation of the Truman Doctrine. The doctrine stated that the United States would give aid to any nation or free people who would resist both external and internal overthrow by another country that did not uphold the democratic ideology. When translated, this basically meant that the United States would oppose communist takeovers in other nations (Gaddis, 2005). The Truman Doctrine was first applied in Turkey and Greece after the U.S believed that the Soviet Union Insurgents were trying to take over the two countries. The U.S government therefore sent its military to these countries and the communist insurgents lost the battle. The US congress also approved an emergency aid of 400 million US dollars to Greece. In addition the U.S also transferred approximately $1 billion for economic and military reconstruction to the government of Greece. Additionally, the government of United States sent a group of military personnel and advisers under the umbrella of the James van Fleet to Greece for the purpose of supporting and offering training to the Greek national army. The U.S was able to experience the initial victory and success of the containment policy through the Truman Doctrine, in Greece and Turkey (Gaddis, 2005). Thirdly, NATO which consists mainly of Western Europe nations was also part of the U.S containment policy which offered a form of deterrence against any form of Soviet Union aggression to expand communism to Western Europe. This made sure that Western Europe was free of Communism. Furthermore; the Berlin Airlift also proved the significant success of the policy of containment in Europe. It took a strong stand against the expansion of communism that ensured that Berlin was not taken over by the communists. The Americans were afraid that losing Berlin would be a lead up to losing Germany and later on the all of Europe (Gaddis, 2005). Another positive achievement of the policy is the amazing step taken by the United States as recommended by the containment policy to spread democracy (Kennan, 1985). The ideology adopted by the Soviet Union of communism opposed democracy in the sense that people had no voice , citizens had not right to formulate political parties because the communist party automatically came into government . In addition they did not have rights such as the right to speech and assembly. Robin,( 2011) highlights that the United States through the containment plan advocated for the adoption of a democratic process where people can form political parties, elections can be made free and fair and the rights of the citizens such as the right to assemble and speech would be upheld. Since the year 1945, after the Second World War, the U.S acted as an example to the rest of the world of the need to come together and make concerted efforts towards creating a democratic world. Any dictatorial regime, especially communist is, for instance, viewed as an enemy or closely watched. The same is true for any kind of rebel or unstable governments, such as in the Middle East. The containment policy has therefore been successful based on the fact that it has acted as a good policy spreading the democratic ideology in the world (Robin, 2011). The containment policy can also be termed as successful on the basis of the notion that the free market approach was encouraged in many areas of the world and it has been progressive even in the current global market. The free market economic policy was a prolific recommendation of the containment policy that was geared towards preventing the spread of the Soviet Union’s approach of creating a barrier on international commerce. According to Robin (2011) the Soviet Union had the fear that opening up Russia through trade would encourage western influence and further result to the destruction of the totalitarian regime. As a result the Soviet Union tried to influence its approach on other states such as China and Korea. However not many countries concurred with the Soviet Union’s approach. Robin (2011) highlights that; the containment policy was indeed useful in development of a free market economy, where countries can freely trade. This can be backed by the fact that the free market economy has continued to expanded to greater levels among many nations. On the other hand the U.S policy of containment had its share of failures. According to the Mearsheime (2003) the policy was not a success due to various outstanding factors. This was due to the way in which support was marshaled in order to achieve success, which led to some negative consequences that undermined the success of the policy. The idea of the policy of containment turned out to be more military and global. By putting more emphasis on the military aspect in order to contain communism, the U.S only played a role in militarizing its own economy and increasing military competition globally. The U.S also become engrossed with the military and the East-West aspects of local conflicts when it extended containment to the developing countries, as a result, making it difficult for her to understand the local reasons for conflict situations. This approach resulted in misguided efforts in Vietnam and Central America. The policy was thus ineffective as it went far beyond any national interest and committed the United States to a number of conflicts that it had no interest (Shulman, 1987). The failure of the United Policy of containment was also seen based on the fact that it was only able to contain the expansion of communism within Europe and not anywhere else. The policy of containment was, for instance, did not extended to regions of Asia, and this led to China and Vietnam becoming communist. Even in, Korea, the United States involvement was merely under the United Nation banner and therefore not really an extension of the Truman Doctrine, despite the fact that South Korea was opposing the communist invasion. Additionally, no assistance with regards to the Marshall Plan was offered to any nation outside Europe. The United State policy of containment had also no importance to nations within the Soviet Union sphere of influence. For instance, when Hungary made attempts to break free from the communist rule during the 1956, the United State did not offer any kind of assistance to the people of Hungary. Hence, there lacked consistency in the way the Truman Doctrine was being applied (Krueger and Meernik,1998). Also, another aspect of failure of the policy is that the only measure of achievement of the policy was probably to quarantine communism, mostly on its grave opponent; the Soviet Union. This is because in the years subsequent to the Second World War, the United States has completely failed to contain the rise of communism to any level of efficiency. The entire of Eastern Europe fell to communism. The densely populated nations of the planet, also moved the communist way, and indirectly took with it Vietnam and North Korea, and as well made the nations of Laos and Cambodia quasi-communist. The U.S even has a communist state, Cuba, 90 miles from its boundaries. In addition, the framework of the containment policy was developed on aspect of strengthening countries around the borders of the Soviet Union in order for them to avoid communism. This was done though the signing of various treaties such as NATO, Atlantic Treaty Organization, SEATO, Southeast Asia Treaty Organization and Cento Central Treaty Organization and many other treaties. However in despite of strengthening ties with countries that surrounded the Soviet Union , communism was still able to spread in certain countries , making the policy to be perceived as just a quarantine to communism, mostly on its grave opponent; the Soviet Union( McCormick , 1995). According to Duiker (1994), the US policy of containment can also be argued to have failed based on what is seen today. As highlighted by Duiker (1994), some individuals may argue that since the Soviet Union finally fell, the U.S policy of containment was successful. However, this is just an exaggeratedly generous statement since the Soviet Union only fell under its own weight. Its costly military expenditures in addition to the cost of administering such a large nation were difficult to sustain, forcing the union into bankruptcy. Duiker (1994), argues that even though the Cold War ended during the year 1989, it is still not completely dead. The Russian president, Putin, still has strong communist leanings, and, in the present day, a large number of European nations such as Romania, Hungary, Germany and Albania have active and relatively strong communist parties. Additionally, as a another sign that the U.S policy of containment failed to contain communism, countries aside from those under the Soviet Union have completely remained communist countries up to this days. North Korea, China, Vietnam and Laos are completely communist countries. Interestingly enough, China even came up with their own communist ideologies, which they have adopted even currently. Based on this particular view point, the U.S foreign policy of containment was a sad failure, to a certain extent. Therefore, not only as the United States containment policy during the height of the Cold War been a failure, but its failures can be witnessed to this present day. Conclusion The U.S policy of containment, in my opinion, can be argued to have made extraordinary success at containing communism, as long as one views success as not falling to communism again. On one side as indicated by the above analysis, the United States policy of containment worked, and was therefore a success. Its success lies not only on the fact that it helped reverse the after-war demobilization and the establishment of military balance, but also on the fact that it proved that the U.S effectively addressed the local causes of political weaknesses and disorder, such as in Western Europe, by shutting out the expansion opportunities of Soviet Union influence and control. On the other hand the policy also recorded failure. Reference Duiker, W.J, 1994, U.S. containment policy and the conflict in Indochina, Stanford University Press Fienberg, H, 2007, “How would you define what Kennan meant by Containment? Was it a successful policy idea in your view?”Retrieved on March 15, 2012 from Gaddis, L,2005, Strategies of containment: a critical appraisal of American national security policy during the Cold War, Oxford University Press. Krueger, EL and Meernik,J,1998, Testing models of US foreign policy: Foreign aid during and after the Cold War, Journal of Politics, 18(4),p174-180, Cambridge University Press Kennan,G,1985, American Diplomacy, Penguin Group USA. McCormick ,J, 1995, America's Half-Century: United States Foreign Policy in the Cold War and After, JHU Press. Mearsheime, J, 2003, An unnecessary war, Foreign Policy, 2003 Robin, 2011, “How Successful was the Containment Policy?” Shulman, M.D, 1987, Four Decades of Irrationality: U.S-Soviet Relations Read More