Truman Doctrine the First Episode That Led

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 resistance to "armed minorities" from within their own nation or pressures (monetary and military) exerted by outside forces (Murrin et al. 2008; UDDOS 2011).

In this particular instance, Great Britain had been supporting Turkey against the Soviet Union and Greece against insurrection, but informed the United States that they would not be able to continue providing this support (USDOS 2011). The Truman Doctrine was developed in order to contain Communism by helping non-Communist nations to resist being oppressed and controlled by Communist nations or being overrun in a Communist revolution (Gregorsky 1992). In practice, the Truman Doctrine worked much the same as it was put forth by Truman himself and those in his administration.

In the first development and test of this new Doctrine, Truman and his advisers convinced a politically opposed Congress (the majority in both houses was Republican) to provide a total of $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey (Murrin et al. 2008). This presented a fairly drastic change from previous policies, which considered "foreign aid" and "taking sides" to be "un-American" (Gregorsky 1992). This policy quickly took hold, however, and led to the systematic support of foreign nations facing Communist threats (USDOS 2011).

The effects of the Truman Doctrine on the trajectory of the United States and of countries around the globe are difficult to overstate. The Truman Doctrine quickly developed into the Marshall Plan, which basically extended similar forms of aid to many European nations in order to support democratic (and capitalist) governments during the Cold War period (Gregorsky 1992; Murrin et al. 2008).

In Greece and Turkey first, and late rin other nations facing various levels of threat from both internal and external Communist forces, the support of the United States enabled the rejection of these elements and the strengthening of democratic and free market power structures and infrastructures (Murrin et al. 2008; Spalding 2006).

Through the containment practices of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, the United States became heavily involved in protecting and securing -- and in many ways, directing -- the affairs of much of the rest of the world, which contributed in no small way to the political and economic dominance of the United States during the twentieth century and also set the stage.