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Assess The Significance Of The Truman Doctrine

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Assess The Significance Of The Truman Doctrine
“Assess the significance of the Truman Doctrine for the origins and development of the cold war”

The Truman Doctrine was significant to the origins and the development of the cold war between 1945 and 1991 as it had many effects on the Ideologies of Communism and Capitalism, the Sphere of Influence and Universalism. Other significant events that helped shape the Cold War were the three big war conferences, which were the Yalta, Tehran and the Potsdam all of which were attended by the big three leaders of the major powers. The Truman doctrine was the first step the United States (US) took to end its long-standing policy of isolationism through embracing global leadership, sparking tension and mistrust between the Union of Soviet Socialist
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The main economic arm of this policy became known as the Marshal plan formed by Secretary of State George Marshal, it was an offer from the Unites States that they would provide aid to any country which was not communist in Europe trying to rebuild after World War 2. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan was first used to aid Turkey and Greece after Britain was no longer able to support them. President Harry Truman stated in his speech to Congress in March 1947 “I believe we must assist free peoples to work out their destinies in their own way.” He also believed that he had to “scare the hell” out of Congress to get his message across, when Secretary Marshal added his extension to the doctrine stating that the US would provide economic aid to all nations of devastated Europe was not directed “against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos. Its purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the existence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist.”. The United State congress authorized a $13 Billion Dollar investment, which resulted in an extremely rapid growth of democratic Europe. Belgian economic historian Herman Van der Wee concludes the Marshall Plan was a "great success”: “It gave a new impetus to reconstruction in Western Europe and made a decisive contribution to the renewal of the transport system, the modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment, the resumption of normal production, the raising of productivity, and the facilitating of intra-European

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