Assess the strategic strengths and weaknesses of America's 'containment of communism' policy since 1945.

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Assess the strategic strengths and weaknesses of America's 'containment of communism' policy since 1945.

There have been a number of issues raised by this essay prompt, which have forced me to consider the effect this policy has had on the world and the path it has travelled since 1945.

Firstly, we must focus on what the 'communist containment' policy is. Essentially this policy was designed, by the US, for curbing the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union. It was a response to Stalin's desire for a 'cushion' of satellite countries in Eastern Europe and around the USSR's borders so as to protect it from future 'capitalist' interference. However, when answering this question we must be more precise in understanding what the 'communist containment' policy actually constitutes.

The terminology 'communist containment' has been the ideological backbone to American foreign policy over the last five decades, but, successive US governments have differed in their approach to this 'umbrella' terminology. Therefore, to be able to debate this essay question thoroughly we will have to examine each doctrine that has been in action since 1945, whilst focusing on examples of 'communist containment.'

George Keenan, a State Department official published an anonymous article in the US Journal Foreign Affairs (1947) outlining the future US foreign policy needed, if Soviet expansionist tendencies were to be contained. Keenan commented on his understanding of the USSR by suggesting that:

"...the Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry...it has no right to risk the existing achievements of the revolution for the sake of vain baubles in the future."1

And, it was due to this understanding of the Soviet psyche that Keenan proposed the USA foreign policy, Keenan concludes his article by suggesting that:

"...in these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."2

Keenan's conclusions can be seen as the 'ideological foundations' of communist containment. The effects this had on US policy thinking were immediate. In the same year as Keenan's article (1947) President Truman initiated the 'Truman doctrine' in a speech in March as a response to the fear of Russian intentions & involvement in Turkey and Greece due to the power vacuum created by Britain's withdrawal of aid & guarantees to these two countries (Civil war in Greece and Russian desire for territorial gains in Turkey). Truman proposed a choice between two ideological combatants, whereby:

"One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed on the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press, framed elections and the suppression of personal freedom."3

What we can see here is the beginnings of the ideological and actual bi- polarisation of the world. The Truman doctrine, in effect was a shift from the isolationism of the Monroe doctrine of the last 150 years to an acceptance of the role the USA 'had' to play in the international political, economic and social scene. The two effects the Truman doctrine had on the international scene, which are to be examined are; the Marshall Plan and the Korean War.

The aims of the Marshall Plan were complex and inter- dependent. Europe, by the end of World War II, was economically and politically shattered. As well as the great humanitarian need to aid Europe, the communist parties of France and Italy had obtained positions of power within their respective governments by using the ill economic situation as a platform for their extreme ideological positions (note the obvious- Hitler's rise to power in Germany during the 'Great Depression'). It was due to this, which led US Secretary of Defence- Forrestal- to request action, for;

"...unless the United States acted quickly and on a scale adequate to meet the need, Europe would be swept by revolution. If this happened, the Western hemisphere would be isolated- for no one in his right mind believed that the new governments would be anything but hostile."4
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Thus, the Marshall Plan was a policy of economic reconstruction and development aid offered to all governments of European countries (including Russia, Czechoslovakia and Poland), the terms and conditions for those countries who joined were required to reduce trade barriers (General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs) to all countries so as to be able to stimulate world trade, and conform to the USA's desire for "...free convertibility of currencies."5 In effect, this meant a conversion to a capitalist laissez-faire economy.

This policy achieved a number of successes, for it helped revive the American economy by opening ...

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