The Us Containment Policy History Essay

The Us Containment polity History set ab come to the forePower extension has al elans been a subject that fascinated me. on that channel are count infinitesimal substances in which groups of individuals can main(prenominal)tain interests of their communities and nourish them from possible affrights. This phenomenon has been cognize to the humanity ever since the send-off human got finish up the tree and straightened up. The more(prenominal) sophisticated tools we started using, the more spartan the threat has become. prototypical armies were created, followed up by intelligence services and counter-intelligence services investigating threats deuce unconnected and domestic. By means of diplomacy, diversion, espionage, and violence mighty rulers were trying to underwrite national security by influencing the circumstances on different directs think of Vaticans interference in french politics via Cardinal Richelieu or Charlemagnes rambles to lean thousands and co nvert the proto(prenominal)(a)s force richly into Christianity during the Saxon wars.This c oncept remained unchanged for centuries and r individu anyyed its peak in the 20th century, materializing in three terrifying wars of which one is alike known as the Cold fight. For me as a person elicit in power extension is the latter an episode that can non be over evince. For this debate I decided to im sort my PWS to it. However, origin all toldy intending to write as much as possible approximately the Cold War and the correlative American and Russian traffic precisely, I had to delimit the subject in order to abide by with the quantitative requirements laid upon me. By means of a selection I chose the aspect of the Cold War which I found by furthest the most interesting, namely the basic assumptions of the post-war American politicians of how to pr flatt the socialism from spread head, in like manner known as the containment polity (derived from contain to keep somethin g under control), and the governmental and military actions of the American Administration in which these communism-countering ideas can be recognized.In my typography, macrocosm as a matter of fact a scripted deform of reference establish on numerous sources, I volition try to answer the question of how successful the containment insurance invented and applied by the American indemnitymakers in the divisions 1945-1949 turned out to be and to what period it pr flatted the communism from spreading.Despite the subject concerns a short period of quint years there is much to be compose. It is never easy when it comes to explaining governmental decisions and therefore it is highly un avert adapted to pay heed the underlying grounds, of which the gradual culture led to the measures in question. So allow for my paper begin with the explanation of the primary reasons bequeathing in the introduction of the containment policy.Having expound the latter I pass on focus on wh at I personally consider as the nub of my work a summary of deductions concerning the Soviet post-war point of ingest written exhaust by a high-rank diplomat working in the American Embassy in Moscow. The summary to be found in chapter 3 depicts pre directly the direction that was to be given to the American outside policy in response to the Soviet spreading ambitions.Theory and planning, however, are often non sufficient to bring the pass judgment change. Real action is alike infallible and so it must(prenominal) be addressed to in my paper in order to make the story complete. Chapter 4 will outline the efforts the US policymakers made as far as the application of the containment policy on the europiuman policy-making arena is considered. A careful and critical lecturer will find amongst lines the answer on how successful the containment proved to be. The chapter also leaves an open caterpillar tread for those who will attempt to imagine what the current gentlemans gentleman would look like if there were no communism-countering measures or individuals ready to devote their sprightliness to protection of democratic values.I find it indispensable to mention that I wanted this PWS to be a challenge and some select of test of my address skills since I am not a natural speaker of English and my level of it is far from proficiency. I didnt choose the easiest way out which was writing this paper in Dutch a language I am much more familiar with. Instead I decided to use the fortune to learn English vocabulary and well-formed constructions which I might not have memorized if I hadnt written it in the way I had.Before you continue reading I authentically want you to know that it is not my intention to lay either rare beliefs upon you. On the contrary, I hope my paper will help you assure the past, which is aft(prenominal) all necessary in order to stand consciously in the pre displace and create a future not based on ignorance of not knowin g what the events taking place are caused by. lie with your journey substantiate in timeChapter 2 What were the primary reasons for the mutual distrust resulting in the introduction of the containment policy?The first section of this paper will throw some light on the background of the containment policy and, as a matter of fact, The Cold War itself. A beseeming comprehension of this part is necessary in order to answer the main question. aft(prenominal) the very last tanks ceased firing and the Second World War ended, many realized how terribly destructive the war had been. It had materialized in thousands of destruct cities and generations of young men who lost their lives in combat, not to mention civilians and their around-the-clock fear for their lives. Many of the survivors were looking brightly at the future which was expected to bring about precious peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, only a a few(prenominal) were aware of the threat that was about to arise.The Tehera n ConferenceTo be wide of the marky able to give a constructive answer to the question in the title we have to go back in time to 1943, from November 28 up to December 1 to be precise. The Teheran Summit was the first of the conferences held mingled with all the members of the Big trey, giving shape to those that were about to be held within the next years. Allied leaders representing the united arouses, the join acres and the Soviet Union pulled together in the Capital of their ally, Iran, to discuss measures that were necessary to overpower the common enemy.Apart from setting up a scheme that included synchronized operations to be undertaken from multiple directions, the Big Three agreed that they shall seek the cooperation and active participation of all nations, large and small, whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the ejection of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance1. This encouraging press release was definitely an in-c hief(postnominal) sign of taking a step forward into creating some lovable of an international organization that would avoid imperfections of its predecessor, The League of Nations.Preventing aggressive tendencies of any split up would be its major goal. Next to the authenticty of participation of the Soviet Union, the get together States and the united Kingdom in the project the question of any subroutine that chinaware and France should play came up. Odds enough the Chinese politicians had not been sensible about the proposed understanding at that point of time as result of their disability to form a stable government. Thanks to the Churchills telegram sent to Roosevelt we can surely as shooting state that the British judgment of State was more than free to ignore his early reluctance concerning China if the American chairperson kept pushing on their engagement. As estimate to France, it is believed that Roosevelts strong antipathy towards De Gaulle might have been a factor why Frances involvement was not taken seriously at that point of negotiations.After all, the maintenance of peace by controlling, disarming, preventing from rearming in secret and, if necessary, a pulley against a country and its bombardment seemed to be accepted by each of the Heads of State. A press release saying We await the day, when all nations of the universe will live calml, free of tyranny, gibe to their national needs and sense of right and wrong 1 gave a deceptive impression of a complete cooperation. The question of resetting close boundaries, brought up by the Russian delegation (consisting of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Defence curate Klimentii Voroshilov), wasnt solved so soft. It was to become one of the most difficult password points which would dominate the Yalta Conference and caused first dents in the mutual trust amongst the Soviet Union and the other two allies.The Yalta ConferenceThe import shock of all three members of the Great Alliance wa s announced in January 1945. It became kind of obvious that the issue of boundaries couldnt remain unresolved any extensiveer aft(prenominal) the Russian forces had entered on fill out soil nearly a year before on January, 2. The necessary solution was hoped to be found, as utter by Churchill, in the worst place in the world 2 Crimean Yalta. It must be mentioned that each of the participants of the summit held between February 4 and 11 was in the first place, quite logically, trying to maintain the interests of their own country.For the sake of this thesis the main bottlenecks connected to prospective mutual relations will be worked out in detail. These three completely different approaches can be summarized as follows Winston Churchill mainly interested in the europiuman arena and the French role in the occupation of Germany Franklin Delano Roosevelt apprehension on the Far einsteinium and setting up a sort of organization of united nations marshall Stalin the Polish question beingness a matter of great immenseness for the Soviet Union. advertisemore an interest in be advent a demesne of bewitch where the Soviet superiority would be accepted.The compromise about the United Nations came more easily than Roosevelt had ever expected. The stagnantlock on the voting influence of the United Nations, about the right of veto to be precise, had been overcome and the modus operandi of Soviet republics, which were to participate, had been decreased from sixteen to at least two.Stalins postulates narrowed down to the issue of setting the Polish eastern frontiers at the Curzon Line a demarcation line that was proposed at the Paris Peace Conference as the eastern boundary of Poland excluding the city of Lvov with its huge percentage of Polish citizens.3The super complicated negotiations between the three Heads of State and both Polish governments (one in-exile and the second set up by the Russians) led to the adoption of the controversial Curzon Li ne. Stalins spreading intentions, except for the plausible argument of necessity to possess one more ice-free harbour, were perfectly described by Marshall Stalin himself to Ernest Evin, the British unusual Secretary, sayingThe United Kingdom had India and the Indian Ocean in her range of interest the United States China and Japan the USSR had nothingTo guarantee the liberty of elections and establishment of democracy according to westwardern terms, the Big Three approved the Joint Declaration on Liberated Europe that promised peoples liberated from the mastery of Nazi Germany and the peoples of the former Axis orbiter states of Europe to solve by democratic means their pressing political and economic problems4. Nevertheless, the declaration preceding(prenominal) mentioned turned out to be completely meaningless as memorial has shown. Due to its conditional implementation and lack of binding commitments there was no legal force upon signatories to maintain the agreement. How ever, no violations of the Yalta agreements by Stalin were suspected at this point of time, as utter by Churchill.The impression I brought back from the Crimea, and from all my other contacts, is that Marshal Stalin and the Soviet leaders wish to live in honourable friendship and equality with the Western democracies. I tactile sensation also that their word is their bond. I know of no government which stands to its obligations, even in its own despite, more solidly than the Russian Soviet regimen. I decline absolutely to embark here on a word of honor about Russian good faith. It is quite evident that these matters touch the unanimous future of the world. 5According to Professor Arthur Schlesinger signing the declaration by Stalin was a diplomatic blunder which became obvious just a month by and by the Big Three gather in Yalta. The assureings, which were supposed to determine the scoop Polish democratic leader, eventually proved to be an excellent way for Soviet secret po lice to reach the large(p) members of the former Polish resistance and make them disappear, despite the promised Soviet guarantee of immunity. It didnt take a long time before Churchills initially credulous account of the agreement transformed into the opposite conviction. By 13 March he sent a telegraph to Roosevelt with a statement that the Heads of State were in the mien of a great failure and an utter breakdown of what was settled at Yalta 6. Twelve days later the British prime minister described the situation on the West-East border as an iron curtain, which is slowly descending. The chase quotation illustrates just how dramatically the bringments in the European arena were becoming.If the German people lay down their heavy subdivisions, the Soviets, according to the agreement between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin, would lodge in all of East and Southeast Europe along with the greater part of the Reich. An iron curtain would fall over this enormous territory controlled by the Soviet Union, behind which nations would be slaughtered.7In the mean enchantment the messages exchanged between Stalin and Roosevelt, who were increasingly becoming the two bigger players in the Big Three, were full of mutual accusations of jeopardizing the vulnerable accord.The Potsdam ConferenceThe Polish matter reached a dead end. How things let oned couldnt be witnessed by Roosevelt, who died on 12 April 1945. His successor, Harry Truman, once vice-president under Roosevelt, was expected to continue the policy towards the Soviet Union initialized by Roosevelt. However, it became obvious from the beginning that the mild approach, continuously applied by his predecessor, wasnt Trumans dearie style of work. The Potsdam Conference, lasting from July 17 to August 2, aside of being a permanent confirmation of previously made agreements, became Trumans first evidential probability to influence the US-USSR relationship, mainly because of its nuclear undertone. The US preside nts decision not to fully inform Stalin about the rapid progress concerning the construction of an atomic weapon correctly delineates the prospective Trumans policy of ill will and inscrutability towards The Soviet Union. A mentioning of a new weapon of unusual destructive force 8 did not peculiarly bother Stalin, who was already in 1943 informed about an atomic weapon allegedly built in the West. Russian atomic project did not accelerate until Japan was bombed twice in folk 1945. The order, given by Marshal Stalin to Igor Kurchatov, a leading Russian physicist, sounded more or less The balance has been destroyed. Provide the bomb (* No firm evidence of this commemorate has remained until now hardly the sense of the message is kept unchanged).Chapter 3 What was the containment policy based on?In this paragraph I will soon describe the major political events that gave shape to what is now understood as the containment policy.President Harry Truman, despite being known of his un yielding personality, lacked become in foreign affairs and could hardly do without a flesh of political analysts. These happened to be influenced by the opinions of George F. Kennan (to be seen on the right egest), the prominent USSR specialist in the State Department and the charge daffaires at the American Embassy in Moscow, whose role in the process of the containment policy coming into life cant be over-emphasized. On February 22, 1946 he sent a long analysis of Soviet post-war outlook to his colleagues in the Capitol in Washington. https//blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/files/mt/images/kennan.jpgThe alleged(prenominal) Long telegram, of which the most relevant points are summarized below, became one of the major documents that the containment policy was based on.George F. Kennan 9A brief characteristic of the Soviet point of view, according to the propaganda political machine-The geographical and political surrounding of the USSR by capitalistic nations will eventually result in a battle for the economical leaders in the world, which will be also crucial for the fate of communism/communism and capitalism.-Any actions, activities and happenings abroad which seem to correspond with the Soviet interests to a certain detail should be supported. In the long run the differences between capitalist countries will become too healthy to be overcome in a peaceful manner. No opportunity may be lose to turn the internal conflict into a communisticic revolution.The background of the head The premises do not represent the point of view of an clean Russian. The ordinary citizen, on the contrary to what is stated by the officials, is more than willing to contact the outside world and live peacefully. It must be kept in mind that the party is the villain The basic assumptions of the Russian propaganda machine pre-date the World War II, which makes it irrelevant and nothing more than incorrect (spoken in terms of 1940s). The premises are as much as necessary for the R ussian party in order to deter Soviet citizens coming in contact with technically and economically more advanced West which might prove the fallibility of the communism/socialism.Steps that will be undertaken on the official (diplomatic) level-Increasing the outsiders perception of strength of the Soviet military inventory and industrial development as much as social ropiness is a significant part of the national policy. On the other hand attempts will be made to conceal imperfections and weaknesses of the system. The efforts to extend Soviet political power will materialize themselves into territorial claims on the official level only after finishing wildcat preparations. Soviet participation in international organizations (as United Nations) serves only the pragmatic purposes of expanding the Soviet political influence on the international arena and reducing operational ability of others. United Nations are not seen as an instrument for a stable and peaceful world association based on interests of all nations. Even on the official level the Soviet Union will attempt to overthrow the relations between Western states and their (former) colonies in order to clear the path for the Soviet participation in policymaking.-Soviet politicians, while being abroad, will be urged to follow the strict diplomatic protocol with emphasis laid on good manners in order to increase the impression of the Soviet prestige.Suspected activities on the unofficial level, i.e. on level for which the Soviet administrations do not take responsibilityI feel obliged to refer on the incredible importance of the following section. The contained statements are these that the Truman Administration (and any other following until the end of 1980s) had mostly to deal with.Actions on the unofficial level will be first of all directed to foreign organizations, movements, societies and governments that are regarded as susceptible for, what the party asserted, the Russian sense of nationalism and Marx ideas of equality. The left-wing activists, officially members of Western Labour Parties, were encouraged to work on underground lines and were intensively instructed by politicians in Moscow. A diversity of organizations and associations, such(prenominal) as racial, feministic or religious societies, is highly exposed to penetration. Even the subdivisions of the Jewish-Orthodox Church located abroad are at risk of being penetrated.George Kennan states that organizations above mentioned will be solely used in handle of their expertise, e.g. influential orthodox activists would jeopardize any thinkable actions of Protestant politicians. Further explanations follow Increasing industrial and social unrest and stimulation of all possible forms of disunity will result in undermining operational potential of the westbound states and breaking off the national confidence. In countries forced into colonial relationships unco cruel actions will be undertaken to destroy relatively good relations with (former) mother countries. Simultaneously extreme left-wing parties will be preparing for not necessarily legal taking-over of political power.-Governments obviously not agreeing with the Soviet foreign policy will be kept under pressure in order to cause their eventual removal from office. Every imaginable body process will be undertaken in order to provoke the most powerful Western states against each other.Conclusions for the US GovernmentSoviet power, not courtly in character, doesnt work by strict plans and doesnt take unnecessary hazards. It is extremely responsive to logic or force and therefore it can easily pull back and mostly does when facing a strong opposition. So, quoting Kennan, if the opposer has sufficient force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he rarely has to do so. 9 The next point the author makes has to do with the Western degree of cohesion, firmness and muster. Success of the Soviet Union, as for being the weaker force, depen ds to some limit on the mentioned factor. Another factor that is relatively easy to deal with is the Soviet propaganda. The destructive and generally negative character of it can be conflicting by a sort of intelligent and constructive programmes.In the terminus the author states that a calm and unprovoked recognition of the hypothetically dangerous movements must be the governments very first step. Furthermore the public raising should play a bigger role. The fear of unknown can be overcome by informing the citizens about the Russian reality. After all it would result in improvement of social cohesion and make the society less vulnerable to threats from both outside and inside. Finally Kennan brings up the significance of formulating a constructive and positive picture of the sort of world the US policy makers would like to see. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened b y experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking counselor-at-law rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than Russians to give them this. And unless we do, Russians certainly will. 10The reaction of the Russians wasnt immediate. Nearly seven months later, on September the 27, the Soviet Ambassador to United States, Nikolai Novikov, sent a note to the highest officials of the Soviet Union that was nothing but an analysis of the Kennans Long Telegram and the US post-war foreign policy towards the Soviet Union in general. These became accessible for outsiders after the publication in strange Affairs magazine of the so-called X Article in July 1947, being as a matter of fact an adjusted version of the sure analysis of Kennans. Novikov concluded that the American outlook is predominantly characterized by the bm towards the worlds supremacy and as well economical as military leadership. Amongst others he stated that the plans of establishing more than 480 naval bases, American mainland signalize intense intentions of hostility towards the Soviet Union.By the end of 1946 the political situation between the US and the SU reached its lowest point since the end of the Second World War. Western politicians were little by little abandoning their hope for the cooperation with the Russians and the Kennans prophecy was slowly becoming the reality. How the US officials reacted and what measures they took in order to deter foreign government representatives from embracing communism will be properly described in the following paragraph.Chapter 4 What efforts did the US government make to materialize the containment policy and with what result?The Truman ismThe Truman Administration received multiple signals from its British Ally about the little by little increasing difficulties of His Majestys Government to provide on-going financial help to Greece and dud the two states the United Kingdom had been s upporting for years and which found themselves standing on the edge of a democratic collapse. In an official note geological dating to February 21, 1947 British informed Washington of their inability to support the mentioned states and requested for a takeover of their economical obligations. Trumans reaction came into history as the Truman Doctrine. In his talking to to a joint session of Congress of March 12, he emphasized the moral obligation of the American state to provide assistance to the peoples of Greece and jokester in order to establish a democracy and restore the business office of the government. In regard to Greece the President stated that the British aid issued in the preceding years wasnt sufficient to supply the weak and not able to operate independently army and fight communist insurgents dislocating the Greek state. jokester, on the contrary, didnt need financial assistance so desperately at that point of time. Nevertheless collect to a historic background of Greece and Turkey being stubborn rivals for decades it was necessary to split the currency equally in order to avoid future claims of injustice or, even worse, anti-Western tensions. Truman concluded that the US Government was the only institution in the world able to prevent Greece and Turkey from becoming what the totalitarian states in the period of the Second World War were regimes of minorities getting their path clear by means of violence and suppression.I find it interesting to mention that the presidential Congress speech is also known as the Trumans containment speech. Clark Clifford (Trumans advisor), asked in 1972 about the nickname, said we were concerned about preventing Soviet control of larger areas of the world than they already controlled 11. Although the word containment wasnt even said once by Truman in his speech, the measures supposed by him voiceless on opposing the activities mentioned in the fourth point of Kennans Long Telegram namely the actions of t he Soviet party conducted on unofficial level. Greek communist freedom fighters were not powered by Marxs ideals but by Stalins money and military arsenal. As result of it the most of the $338 million sent by the United States to Greece was spent on military equipment.The concept of supporting European nations economically, drafted in March 1947 and perfectly outlined by the President Truman in his Congress speech, was just a momentary restoration programme, which had to prevent Greece and Turkey from falling into the hands of communism. How this financial aid, meant only for the time being, transformed into a long-term supportive programme will be depicted in the following section.Marshall intentThe Marshall architectural plan, although originally not mean to be a part of the containment policy as stated in the May 23 report of the Policy Planning Staff, became a significant step forward taken by the American Administration, influence and actions of which were step by step becom ing more visible on the international political arena. The Policy Planning Staff (PPS), created by George Kennan at the request of the Secretary of State George C. Marshall, was given the task of, taking a long term, strategic view of global trends and framing recommendations for the Secretary of State to advance U.S. interests and American values.12 In the context of the European Recovery Program, as the so-called Marshall Plan was officially known, it came down to investigating multiple possibilities of supporting financially the European communities in order to solve their war-caused economical problems and bring them to the level of self-sufficiency. To avoid sceptical publicity criticizing Americans for their interventionism in European affairs, aid would be all launched if the formal initiative came from Europe. Besides it was required that the program would evolve on the Old Continent and that its leaders would take the fundamental responsibility for it, while the US would l imit themselves to a supportive program of such an task by financial means.Knowing the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union, Kennan and the other members of the PPS didnt want the European Recovery Program (ERP) to be a reason for the further isolation of East from West. Although speculating on Soviet reluctance, the inventors of the Marshall Plan included in their project the participation of the Eastern nations in an early stage. By leaving the door open the American policymakers could verify the Soviet attitude towards the plan, which eventually would give proof of their good or knotty faith. Kennan and his co-workers were convinced that this offer would not remain without response, since economical co-operation of Soviet transmit countries with the US would result in weakening of Soviet control in these states.On June 5 1947 the first signals concerning the Marshall Plan were sent out to the outside world. The Harvard speech of Secretary Marshall, being an announcemen t of conditions and proposals above mentioned, didnt meet much of approvement at the other side of the Iron Curtain. Already after a couple of multipartite conferences the Soviet delegation under go of Molotov turned down the negotiations. According to the diary notes of Vincent Auriol, the French president at that time, Molotov said amongst other things that the project would divide Europe 13 which testified the bad faith of the Soviet party. The September speech of Soviet legate foreign minister Andrei Vyshinsky to the United Nations General Assembly was its final confirmation. He stated that the Marshall Plan was a firm violation of the 11 December 1946 resolution of the United Nation, which declared that distribution of economic resources by a state may not be used as an instrument of political pressure. According to Vishinsky the Russian government saw the European Recovery Project as an attempt to put European states in American sphere of influence and to intervene in their internal affairs. In Soviet opinion the plan would result in splitting Europe into two antagonistic blocs, of which the Western one, led by the United States, would develop a certain hostility towards democratically ruled Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union in particular.The splitting up of the Russians gave the American politicians an opportunity to give the aid programme a hoped-for direction. As stated by Michael J. Hogan, an adviser to the US Department of State, the Marshall Plan was about to become a protective measure to counter the Soviet threat and serve as an extension of the containment policy 14.Unlike Soviet satellite states, which dropped off under pressure of the Soviet Union, the sixteen Western neighbours gathered at a conference in Paris, which lasted from July 12 up to September 22, and was intended to give shape to the financial requests that would be presented to the Americans. Unfortunately due to disunity of the European leaders concerning the fina l amount that would be asked for and their unwillingness to gaucherie part of political responsibilities to a collectively created international body, which was known as the Committee of European Economic Cooperation (CEEC), Kennan and his Policy Planning Staff did not receive an acceptable report.There are a huge list of details concerning the Marshall Plan being brought to life, which I would like to work out narrowly. Unfortunately I have to limit