In this essay, I will show why America had a growing involvement in Europe between 1945-1948. The USA implemented the Truman doctrine to contain communism, used the Long telegrams to spy on the USSR and gave money to western countries to discourage them from communism. I will explore all of these points in this homework and why America got involved in Europe because of these points. One reason was the Truman doctrine. The Truman doctrine was the idea that the United States would try to prevent communism from spreading.
The main idea was called ‘containment’ which involved containing communism in eastern Europe and not letting it spread to other countries. One way they did this was helping the capitalists in communist revolutions. An example of this was the civil war in Greece, with the USA providing military aid in 1947. The USA wanted to make sure countries stayed capitalist as they would be able to trade with them and would stop the communist’s having a growing influence, especially in Europe.
This links to the Marshall Plan as they both were ways to stop European countries swapping to communism and increase trade. Another reason was the Long telegrams. The Long Telegrams was a secret report from American’s ambassador in Moscow. The USA had told the American ambassador to report the plans of the USSR. The telegrams reported that Stalin had given a speech on the destruction of capitalism, there could be no peace with USSR whilst it opposed capitalism and that the USSR were building up resources.
The Essay on To What Extent Can USA and USSR Be Blamed for the Start of the Cold War
To What extent can USA and USSR be blamed for the start of the Cold War? After World War II, a new world order was created as USSR and USA emerged as the two superpowers. There were already existing tensions between these two before the war and the wartime alliance was more out of the need to destroy the common enemy, Germany, rather than out of mutual agreements between these two. It has been ...
This made the USA worry as it looked like that the USSR were preparing to invade. This caused the USA increase its influence on Europe so that the USSR would find it more difficult to invade the USA. This links to the Norvikov telegrams which was a secret report from the USSRs ambassador reporting plans of the USA. This shows that both sides did not trust each other so they had their ambassadors spy on each other and report what was going on. This shows that tensions were very high and that both side were anticipating war, causing an arm race.
A third reason was the Marshall plan. The Marshall plan was when the United States provide economic assistance to restore the economy of Europe. After the war, the Soviet Unions controlled most of Eastern Europe and the USA was worried about that the western European countries would become capitalist, so the USA wanted to discourage countries from becoming Satellite States by giving them large amounts to the Western European Countries in danger of being taken over.
The USA gave $13. 3 billion to Europe for recovery. This money let many European countries rebuild the economy. This allowed the USA to continue to trade with them and contained communism in eastern Europe. This links to Cominform. In October 1947, Stalin set up Cominform. Every communist party in Europe joined. This allowed Stalin control of the Communists in Europe. This allowed him to stop satellite states taking Marshall aid and stop them becoming capitalists.
In conclusion, there are several reasons for the USA becoming more involved in Europe whether to stop communism spreading, to still be able trade with western European countries and trying to stop the USSR destroying capitalism. By stopping Communism spreading they managed to give themselves more power and stop Communism from becoming stronger. By continuing trading with countries they are able to make more money and therefore, making themselves more powerful. Spying on the USSR made relationships worse and developed an arm race but may have caused the USSR invading them.
