After a century and a half, the US had finally
committed itself to play a continuing role on the world stage. But now it was
faced with the challenge of communist expansion.
As
the Soviet Red Army moved toward Berlin in the spring of 1945, it liberated Eastern
Europe from the Nazis and became the dominant power factor in the region.
The
Soviet Union had borne the brunt of the fighting and the losses (20 million)
dur-ing the Second World War. Given the extent of these losses and the fact
that Poland was the traditional invasion route to Russia, Stalin had no
intention of allowing Wes-tern-style democracy to take root in Poland,
Czechoslovakia, or anywhere else under his control, lest these countries adopt
an anti-Soviet stance. Partly as a result of Winston Churchill’s warning in
1946 of an ‘‘Iron Curtain’’ descending in the middle of the European continent,
the US became increasingly concerned at the prospect of a com-munist takeover
in Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe. These rival views about the future
of Europe led to a confrontation between the US, which was in the midst of a massive
demobilization of its armed forces, and the Soviet Union, which had main-tained
its huge army, and which would also soon possess the atomic bomb. This
con-frontation, known as the Cold War, led to an unprecedented arms race
between the US and the Soviet Union that
would lead to a fundamental change in American foreign policy.In 1947, the
Foreign Affairs journal published a famous article signed by ‘‘X’’ (a pseudonym
for an American diplomat, George Kennan) that put forward the idea that the US
should pursue a patient, but firm, long-term policy of containment of Soviet
power. The containment strategy was also designed to destroy Soviet commun-ism
over time, by isolating it and exposing its economic and social weaknesses.
President
Harry Truman, who recognized the need to build on the new consensus that Roosevelt
had created in order to secure domestic support to oppose communism, took up
the containment idea. In a speech to a joint session of Congress on 12 March
1947, the President laid down the policy that became known as the ‘‘Truman
Doctrine.’’
It
must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are
resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
The free peo-ples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their
freedoms . . . if we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the
world – and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our nation.
This
was a blanket commitment by the American President that would define US for-eign
policy for the next forty-five years. For the first time in its history, the US
had chosen to intervene in peacetime outside the Americas. In May 1947,
Congress approved $400 million in assistance for Greece and Turkey, the two
countries perceived as most threatened by communism. The following month,
Secretary of State, George Marshall, announced that the US was also ready to
supply Western Europe with eco-nomic and financial assistance (the Marshall
Plan) in order to help economic recovery and thus stave off the communist
threat. American aid had also been offered to the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe but Stalin had rejected the offer. The US also moved decisively away
from its protectionist trade policies of the inter-war years and helped to establish
international organizations aimed at promoting free trade.
In
July 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which provided for a
single Department of Defense to replace the three independent services and
established the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act also created the National
Security Council (NSC) to advise the President, and set up the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather information and to collate and evaluate
intelligence activities around the world. Truman further extended US
commitments with the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion (NATO)
in 1949, and sent troops to fight in the Korean War in 1950. The US was able to
gain UNSC approval to repel the communist, North Korean invasion of South Korea
as the Soviet Union was then boycotting UN meetings. Truman worked closely with
the Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), Arthur
Vandenberg, to secure bipartisan support for his radical new departure in
for-eign policy (Acheson 1969). The President’s achievements were quite
remarkable.
When
Truman became President in 1945 he led a nation anxious to return to peace-time
pursuits and non-involvement in global affairs. When he left office eight years later,
his legacy was an American presence on every continent, an unprecedented number
of alliance commitments, and an enormously expanded armaments industry. (The
basis for the militarization of US external policy can be found in NSC 68, a famous
memorandum of April 1950, stressing the importance of a strong global mili-tary
posture.)
The Cold War dominated American foreign policy for the next four decades. Leaders of both parties supported the containment strategy and a special American leadership role in world affairs. Speaking at his inauguration in January 1961, President John F.
Kennedy stated that the US ‘‘would pay any price and bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foes’’ to keep the world free from commun-ism. President Jimmy Carter reiterated Wilsonian idealism in proclaiming that the US ‘‘ought to be a beacon for nations who search for peace, freedom, individual liberty and basic human rights.’’ His successor, Ronald Reagan, was equally eloquent, asserting that ‘‘the US was by destiny rather than choice the watchman on the walls of world freedom.’’ After 1947, opposition to communism thus became the guiding principle of Amer-ican foreign policy and although there were substantial differences over the conduct of the Vietnam War, there was no serious opposition to the containment strategy that the US followed from the late 1940s until the end of the 1980s. During this period, the US developed into a global superpower, unlike any other in history. It established over 200 military bases around the world and committed several hundred thousand troops overseas to defend both Europe and Asia. It also engaged in a public relations and clandestine battle with the Soviet Union for the hearts and minds of the Third World, spending huge sums in the process. The defense and intelligence agencies expanded enormously and became important players in the formulation as well as the execution of US foreign policy (Ambrose and Brinkley 1997; Andrew 1995). They also had a major impact on domestic policy, not least because of the numbers they employed.
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