How Did The Truman Plan To Contain Communism

Following the end of World War II two global powers emerged; the United States, a country with European allies, vast manufacturing capacity, and atomic weaponry, and the Soviet Union, powerful due to the sphere of influence it had consolidated over eastern Europe, and it's sizable army. Confrontation between the two countries happened almost immediately, as the Soviet Union used communist ideology to facilitate expansion across Europe, installing communist regimes in Northern Iran, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. As the United States declared that communism was a “worldwide struggle for freedom”, and that it spreading would an affront to American values (Foner 711).As a result, the 1950’s the Cold War started a series of changes in American
foreign policy, roughly guided by the idea of “containment”, in which active interventionism and counter insurgency were used in the name of liberty, as defined by being anti-communist.
Containment referred to the plan to contain communism, on the basis that it was an imposition against “freedom loving peoples” (Foner 711).
This was set off by the Truman Doctrine - the first formal policy of containment. As the Soviet Union continued their geopolitical expansion, the Truman Doctrine acted as the foundation for the decisions made by the U.S in the following years. As Foner notes, “it set a precedent for American assistance to anti communist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union” (Foner 711). With this, Harry Truman showed that the United States was ready to use their policy of containment, to push back communist
regimes. American began their quest for containment in Western European countries, but as the Cold War intensified, the United States used active interventionism into Asian and third world countries to assert their ideological opposition to communism.
While the two world powers never fought face to face, their ideological differences caused proxy wars, in which both countries would support opposing sides of a war effort as a way of competition. The Korean War was the first substantial battle between the two countries in the name of containment. Before the 1950’s invasion by the North Korean Army, Korea had been divided into two sectors; the communist North, supported by the Soviet Union, and the anti communist South, supported by the United States (Foner 715). The Truman administration sent American troops into Korea in an attempt to militarily suppress the northern invasion. Through the help of the United Nations, fifteen other countries also committed resources to the Southern Korean side. The Korean war never formally ended, as the two sides reached a stalemate following massive casualties, but the United States took solace in the fact that they had at least stopped the Soviet Union from spreading communism throughout the whole of the Korean Peninsula (Foner 716). Although it was implied by the Truman Doctrine, the Korean War was significant because it affirmed that the United States was committed to anti-communist efforts in a global sense; they were prepared to use force to
defend democracy anywhere, not just in Europe. Not long after Korea, the Vietnam War broke out. What followed was foreign policy designed to stop communism on more direct terms; “counterinsurgency- intervention to counter internal uprisings in non communist countries to halt the spread of third world revolutions” (Foner 790). In order to assure that the South Vietnam government, which was pro american, did not fall to communism, the U.S government committed hundreds of thousands of troops to what ended up being the longest war in American history (Foner 791). The war was significant because it showed just how far the United States was willing to go in order to defend democracy, “as casualties mounter and American bombs and chemicals poured down on North and South Vietnam” (792). The war was brutal like no other, and it took the foreign policy of Richard Nixon to make any change. Once again shifting America’s goals, Nixon tried to use his policy of realism to try and settle the war. Through the Paris peace agreement, American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, and the military draft ended. When the North invaded months later, “the United States did not intervene,..and Vietnam was reunified under communist rule”(Foner 814). With this, the United States back off on their policy of containment and drew a clearer line on the extent to which they would massacre their troops. Therefore, the Cold War was significant in terms of United States foreign policy, because it set in motion the policy of containment, and also showed the limits to which they would pursue it. Through the Truman Doctrine, the United States began their ideological war, asserting that they would aid countries in support of democracy. During the Korean War, the United States asserted active interventionism on a global scale. At the Vietnam War, the U.S developed their policy of counterinsurgency to fight communism, despite how brutal the war was. In conclusion, the Cold War started a series of changes in American foreign policy, roughly guided by the idea of “containment”, in which active interventionism and counterinsurgency were used in the name of liberty, as defined by being anti-communist.