H. W. Brands claims that, ” the burden of responsibility for the cold war rested on the United States, the more powerful of the two countries, and the one with less to fear from the other.” (The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War, 1993) This statement stems from the idea that America had no evidential basis for a foreign policy that called for a containment of Soviet expansion. Brands is claiming that the US had less to fear because an aggressive foreign force did not surround them. However, America did have a sense of fear. A fear that America’s way of life and prosperity was being challenged by a foreign power who’s aim was to undermine all that America had worked for over the last 150 years.
A fear that America’s domestic economy would crumble without movement into foreign markets. I would ask Mr. Brands at what point is fear a justification for protecting one’s own interests. A question I grant is open to debate. Now it is true that the Soviet Union, after four long years of fighting, could not sustain a costly economic push into the foreign markets of Eastern Europe without fully controlling those markets. It is true that America was far from falling under a grass roots socialist revolution.
Historians understand this now with the release of Cold War Soviet documents showing that Russia was not at America’s back door. However, I think that Truman said it eloquently in his defense over dropping the bomb, “Any schoolboys afterthought is worth more than all the generals’ forethought.” (Robert Messer, “New Evidence on Truman’s Decision”) Based on the readings, I believe the fear held by most in the Truman Administration was founded. The limited evidence they had access to did point to a Soviet expansionist threat. Their understanding of a world market economy, one that led to a severe world wide depression just fifteen years earlier, proved a need to quickly restore European economic stability. All this deals mainly with the beginnings of the Cold War, the period between 1945-1949, when the majority of the foreign policies were formed. This was a time when the Cold War was quite Hot in many places. The Soviet propaganda machine in Moscow was denouncing the Capitalist Imperialist Pigs’ as evil enemies of communism.
The Essay on Cold War Foreign Policy
Introduction Their [Russias and Americas] starting-point is different, and their courses are not the same; yet each of them seems marked by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe, Alexis de Torqueville, late 19th century. De Torquevilles prophecy came true by the 1940s when the two super powers, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, had come head to head, swaying ...
Stalin’s refusal to carry out his agreements at Yalta, not allow free elections in Poland, blockading Berlin, refusing American economic aid, all provided evidence to Truman and his advisors that Stalin was not going to compromise or negotiate. I have thus far been focussing on the Soviet threat and America’s fear of that threat, however the scenario is reversed for those in Russia. They saw a threat to their way of life as well. Protection against invasion from Western Europe was justified based on the two previous World Wars and going as far back as Napoleon’s invasion in the early 1800’s. Soviet access to a warm water port on the Baltic Sea seemed a reasonable request. As did needed oil imports from the Middle East.
The Soviets understood that America’s containment ideology was a direct attack on their ability to maintain foreign relations or influence foreign governments. A policy that the US was actively pursuing themselves. The idea that aggressive, anti-Communist, and perhaps anti-Russian forces were encircling the USSR was all too real for those in Moscow. Stalin also believed firmly in the balance-of-power theory that had ruled European diplomacy since the French revolution. He called on his scientists to, “Provide us with atomic weapons in the shortest possible time The equilibrium has been destroyed.” (Promises To Keep: The United States Since World War II, 2ed, 1999) With America holding the only Atomic bomb capabilities, that upset the balance, this justified any fear of a possible American attack. So it seems obvious to me that in the early days of the Cold War, both sides were doing what was in their best interests, economically, politically, and socially. The problem stemmed from two diametrically opposed economic and political theories.
The Essay on The Great Patriotic War, Cold War, WWII Alliances
The Great Patriotic War: The great Patriotic War is a term used in Russia or previous parts of the Soviet Union when referring to a part of the Second World War. It had originally been used first under the French invasion led by Napoleon and when referring to the First World War, before it again was used. The name represented fighting for your homeland. The Great Patriotic War (GPW) were during ...
Each country looking to expand, thereby stabilizing their own economies. Each seeking protection against what they saw as incompatible foreign adversaries. The US saw Stalin and communism as repressive, just another dictator who needed to be controlled. Moscow saw capitalism and the US as aggressive expansionists, who trample over the worker to gain wealth. Now unfortunately this essay will not allow me to delve deep into the personalities of the two leaders, which I believe has much to do with how the policies and early conflicts played out. Let me just say quickly that between Truman’s blunt, undiplomatic, and often crude conversations with Russia’s diplomats, coupled with Stalin’s paranoia that everyone was against him, and his belief in violent revolutions and massacres to further the communist cause even against his own people, certainly did not help the situation any.
In 1952 however, a major change in American policy toward the Cold War occurred. Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president. Eisenhower compromises; he is a genius at confusion. His policies, though ideologically similar to that of his predecessor, differ enormously in how he carries them out. Due to this, the Cold War suddenly gets colder. Through his quick ending of hostilities and subsequent peace treaty in Korea, his firm refusal to involve America in Vietnam, and his reduction in military spending, Eisenhower shows he does not want a public conflict against communism.
He calls for diplomatic talks with Nikita Krushchev, the then Soviet Premier, and they meet several times throughout the 50’s. All this leads to a lessening in the public sphere of Cold War conflict. However, his support of covert CIA operations in foreign governments which led to the Bay of Pigs disaster in 1961. His approval of U-2 spy plane operations over Russia led to Gary Powers capture in 1960. His public allowing of Senator McCarthy to continue his domestic attacks on supposed Communist sympathizers led to an increased fear in the American psyche against Communism. His prominent advisor John Foster Dulles and his idea of brinkmanship, when followed through in 1962 by his younger brother, leads to the Cuban Missile Crisis. All these behind the scene workings proved to be deadly in the 1960’s.
The Essay on Cold War Or New War American Foreign Policy Since 9 11
The Cold War can be most aptly characterized as an ideological conflict between two superpowers which enveloped and polarized the world for fifty years. It was a conflict between communism and capitalism, the Soviet Union versus the United States. Both nations foreign policies were shaped in order to retain and increase the influence of their respective ideologies whilst restricting the spread of ...
In effect, Eisenhowers’ policies of the which seemed to promote a possible peace, actually created the atmosphere for increased conflict and brought the US and Russia to the brink of war. Krushchev and the Soviets on the other hand were at a major disadvantage. They were falling behind in the arms race with the US. They were loosing ground in the Middle East and other areas. Their economy wasn’t fairing all that well due to their high military and technology spending. Despite their achievement as the first to reach space with Sputnik, they were well behind the west in improving domestic living standards, working conditions, and other non-military technology.
I therefore place the blame for the continuation of the Cold War beyond the fifties upon the heads of Eisenhower, McCarthy, John Foster Dulles, and the rest of the American government, because they knew the Soviets were not equal anymore. They understood that continued direct conflict would result in actual war. Yet they continued a set of policies that was purely anti-Communist for it’s own sake. For the period during the 1950’s, I agree that “the United States, (was) the more powerful of the two countries, and the one with less to fear from the other.”
