The Truman Doctrine: Origins, Cold War Impact, and Legacy

Introduction

Just two 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. This policy, with various refinements, would become the cornerstone of American foreign policy for the next four decades (Trainor, 1998). To determine its overarching impact, this paper reviews the relevant literature in order to identify the author of the Truman Doctrine and explain why it is important in relation to the larger themes of the Cold War era. A summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Origins of the Truman Doctrine

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. This action 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 doctrine it defined, the U.S. Congress appropriated $400 million in April 1947 in order to provide Turkey and Greece with the means to counter their growing internal communist threats (Casey, 2016).

The Truman Doctrine and the Korean War

The Truman Doctrine was important in relation to the larger Cold War themes emerging during this period in American history because it represented America's "pledge to support nations struggling against a communist takeover through any means short of committing U.S. troops" (Trainor, 1998, p. 42). This initial self-imposed limitation on committing U.S. military forces, however, was abandoned 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 United States enjoyed the support of the free world in this military engagement — support it would have otherwise lacked (Anderson, 2010).

Conclusion

The second half of the twentieth century was a turbulent period for the United States and its allies, and Soviet attempts to extend their hegemony far beyond their immediate neighbors became the focal point of America's containment efforts to stop the spread of communism. Although the costs of the Truman Doctrine were high, the outcomes that might have occurred had the United States not stepped up and confronted Soviet aggression directly would likely have been far more costly — with the potential to result in a nuclear-enabled World War III. In the final analysis, it is reasonable to conclude that historians will view the Truman Doctrine as a flawed but successful response to extraordinary geopolitical circumstances.

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.

Trainor, B. E. (1998, March 2). The Clinton doctrine: By confronting Iraq, the president sets a principle for the next century. Newsweek, 131(9), 42.