HIST 405 Week 7 Discussion American Foreign Policy during the Cold War

Sample Answer

By 1947, The U.S. had developed a clear policy of containment toward the Soviet Union, striving to prevent the spread of Communism through economic, diplomatic, and military measures. The United States pursued a geopolitical strategic policy (containment) in order to check the expansionist policy of the Soviet Union.it is loosely related to the term cordon sanitaire which was later used to describe the geopolitical containment of the Soviet Union in the 1940’s.

The strategy of “containment” is best known as a Cold War foreign policy of the United states and its allies to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. The U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan, wrote an anonymous article in July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs that the United States should pursue a Long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies in the hope that the regime would mellow or collapse. The policy was implemented in the Truman Doctrine of 1947, which guaranteed immediate economic and military aid to Greece and Turkey, and the middle Eastern countries resisting communist aggression (OpenStax. (2019).

The Politics of the Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the American initiative to aid Europe, in which the United States gave economic support to help rebuild European destroyed economies. It aimed to feed the people, after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. He secretary of state believed that the stability of European governments depended on the economic stability of the people. Europe needed to rebuild transportation hubs, roads, agriculture, factories, and cities that suffered major losses during the long war.

The United States was the only major power that had not suffered damage during the war. It made sense that America step in to help rebuild (OpenStax. (2019). Marshall saw communism as a threat to European stability. The Soviet Union’s sphere of influence increased during World War II, and tensions between Eastern and Western Europe intensified. The Soviet Union believed that the Marshall Plan was a way to meddle in the internal affairs of European countries. That belief prevented Soviet satellite countries, such as Poland and Czechoslovakia from accepting assistance from the United States.

It also caused, at least in part, the Soviet unions’ economy to be significantly outpaced by those of western Europe and the U.S. Marshall earned the Nobel Peace prize in 1953 for his efforts, but the lasting effects of the plan went well into the future (Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards).

The reliance on American aid opened up trading avenue between Europe and the United States. Without American intervention, Europe’s vast network of railroads, highways, and airports would not exist in contemporary society.
In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin.

On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked all road and rail travel to and from West berlin, which was located within the Soviet Zone of occupation in Germany. The Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. The Soviet action was in response to the refusal of American and British officials to allow Russia more say in the economic future of Germany. The U.S. Government was shocked by the provocative Soviet move, and some in president Harry S. Truman’s administration called for a direct military response.

Truman, however, did not want to cause World War III. Instead, he ordered a massive airlift planes took off from bases in England and Western Germany and landed in West Berlin (Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards). It was a daunting logistical task to provide food, clothing, water, medicine, and other necessities of life for the over 2 million fearful citizens of the city. By the time the Soviets ended the blockade, west Germany had become a separate and independent nation and the Russian failure was complete.

References

• U.S. history. OpenStax CNX. Retrieved from https //cnx.org/contents/p7ovulkl@6.18 gMXC1GEM@7/IntroductionLinks to an external site.
• Spalding, Elizabeth Edwards. “The First Cold Warrior Harry Truman, Containment, and the Remaking of Liberal Internationalism.” Amazon, Univ. Press of Kentucky, 2007, www.amazon.com/First-Cold-Warrior-Containment-Internationalism/dp/0813171288.