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Truman Doctrine
Just 2 years after the end of World War II, President Harry S. Truman delivered a speech to the U.S. Congress concerning the need to contain the spread of Soviet Union-sponsored communism which, with various refinements, would become the cornerstone of American foreign policy for the next 4 decades (Trainor, 1998). To determine its overarching impact, this paper reviews the relevant literature in order to provide an identification of the author of the Truman Doctrine, why it is important in relation to the larger themes of the Cold War era. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning the Truman Doctrine are presented in the conclusion.
In a speech entitled, "Special Message to the Congress on Greece and Turkey" delivered on March 12, 1947 to a joint session of Congress, President Harry S. Truman proclaimed that the foreign policy of the United States would be focused on the containment of Soviet Union-sponsored communism, an action that was fueled by a request for $400 million in military and financial assistance from Greece which was being threatened by a rebellion led by communist insurgents (Foner, 2010). In response to Truman's speech and the Truman doctrine it defined, the U.S. Congress appropriated $400 million in April 1974 in order to provide Turkey and Greece with the means to counter their...
troops" (Trainor, 1998, p. 42). This initial self-imposed limitation of not committing U.S. military forces, though, was discarded following the invasion of South Korea by North Korea in June 1950 (Trainor, 1998). With Truman's timely support, the United Nations had been created the year before the North Korean invasion and the UN Security Council approved a U.S.-led coalition against the North Korean invaders (Anderson, 2010). Despite fairly disappointing contributions by UN member-states to the war effort in Korea, the U.S. enjoyed the support of the free world in this military engagement that it would have otherwise lacked (Anderson, 2010).
Notwithstanding the military stalemate that ended the Korean conflict in 1953 in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, the Truman Doctrine proved to the world that the United States would stand by its…
References
Anderson, A. (2010, April). Give 'em hell, Harry: The guts and glory of Harry S. Truman. Success, 82-83.
Casey, S. (2016, January 1). When Congress gets mad. Foreign Affairs, 95(1), 76-79.
Foner, E. (2010). Voices of freedom. New York. W. W. Norton & Co.
Merrill, D. (2006, March). The Truman Doctrine: Containing communism and modernity. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 36(1), 27-31.
Truman Doctrine: An Overview Dr. Tinsley The Truman Doctrine was the first, formal statement by a U.S. president that America would intervene in the affairs of the world in a formal and consistent manner. It was the death knell of American isolationism and was an open acknowledgement of America's position as a world power willing to take aggressive action in international affairs. Truman unambiguously characterized the Soviet Union as evil, casting America's
Truman Doctrine The first episode that led to the development of what came to be known as the Truman Doctrine occurred in 1947, when Truman asked Congress to provide monetary aid to Greece and Turkey to support their fight against encroaching Communist elements (Spalding 2006; Murrin et al. 2008). Truman's justification for this, and the concept that became his eponymous Doctrine, was that any free people should be supported in their
consequences of the Truman Doctrine and how it affected other areas of American history. President Harry S. Truman unveiled the Truman Doctrine on March 12, 1947, after the end of World War II, in a speech he gave to Congress. It was a doctrine dedicated to supporting democracy and fighting communism around the world, because Truman felt America had an obligation to others as a leader of the free
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's executive order to contain Japanese-Americans in internment camps could have created mistrust in the Japanese and their descendants in the U.S. Such racial antagonism could have made many Americans feel justified to drop the atomic bomb on Japan. Earlier Presidential Statement and Other Motivations The decision to bomb Japan's cities may not be deduced from documents during President Truman's presidency or blamed entirely on President Truman. A
Kennedy recognizes the need to establish a bond with all the South American leaders, thereby isolating Chavez-Chavez politically as ineffective leader in South America. Kennedy perceived the Third World in terms of the "national military establishment," and vulnerable to the manipulations of the Soviet Union (Schwab, Orrin, 1998, 1). Kennedy had already gone around with Cuba, and did not wish to repeat his mistakes in Venezuela, but he also
War in Afghanistan After the terrorist group al Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, the American military was sent to Afghanistan to attack the Taliban, and destroy their governing position. The Taliban became the target of the U.S. because they had allowed Osama bin Laden to use their country as a training ground for terrorist activities directed against the United States. However, the U.S. is now bogged down