Chilly Politics
Uploaded by lmmu on May 25, 2007
The post world war era caused for much stress and strife between the United States and the Soviet Union. Each one tried to overpower or contain the other, and a standoff existed for many years. Many policies and plans burst came with the diverse ideas of foreign policy at that time including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and George Kennan’s philosophies. Most of them seemed quite similar, though all possessed some differences, but the main purpose all maintained included the ultimate goal of the Cold War: Communism containment.
First of all, the Truman Doctrine proclaimed that any nation, not already Communist, attacked or coerced by a Communist nation received U.S. aid and defense. To Truman, and other politicians, it stood as America’s responsibility to defend those nations in order to contain Communism. Greece seemed like a nation in need of that aid, as they faced attacks from a small band of Communist soldiers. Truman wanted to offer financial aid to supply the small Greek army with equipment so that Greece could defend itself and thus promote peace and democracy, ultimately shunning Communism. Turkey, Greece’s neighbor, needed economic assistance as well, but not for direct defense. With the growing marketplaces, Turkey required modernization, which it could not afford alone. If Turkey stayed in the pre/postwar era (it mattered not, as neither stood as great times of economic development) then they remained weak, opening themselves up to an easy takeover. Truman, obviously, thought this bad, and knew that if one Middle Eastern country fell into Communism, a mere few moments awaited before the rest of the region suffered the same fate. Besides the overall objective of containing Communism, Truman knew that no other nation in the world could realistically help Greece and Turkey, because no others really thrived economically yet (besides the Soviet Union).
Because the Soviet Union and America stood as the world’s strongest powers at that time, Truman cited two distinctly different ways of life. The first he described maintained that the majority made decisions and that all people kept all of their rights, liberties, and freedoms. The second way required that decisions became decided through a minority that overpowered the majority. Freedoms died there, while oppression thrived. Truman believed that the U.S. must support countries aiming to maintain freedoms for the people, and that the support from the U.S. must be primarily financial. He, once again, knew that if the...