Download Crisis Diplomacy 1947-1948

COLD WAR
Crisis Diplomacy 1947-1948
The Truman Doctrine and
Containment
• The Truman Doctrine required large-scale military
and economic assistance to prevent communism
from taking hold in Greece and Turkey, which in
turn lessened the Communist threat in the entire
Middle East. The Marshall Plan brought relief to
devastated European countries, ushering in an
economic recovery that made them less
susceptible to communism and opening these
countries up to new international trade
opportunities. This appropriation reversed the
postwar trend toward sharp cuts in foreign
spending and marked a new level of commitment
to the Cold War.
• For the next forty years, the ideological
conflict between capitalism and
communism determined the foreign policy
of the United States and the Soviet Union
and, later, China. The United States pursued
a policy designed to contain Communist
expansion in Europe, the Middle East, and
Asia.
• As tensions mounted, the United States
increasingly perceived Soviet expansionism
as a threat to its own interests, and a new
policy of containment began to take shape,
the most influential proponent of whom
was George F. Kennan.
• was an American advisor,
diplomat, political
scientist, and historian,
best known as "the father
of containment" and as a
key figure in the
emergence of the Cold
War. He later wrote
standard histories of the
relations between Russia
and the Western powers.
• The policy of containment crystallized in
1947 when suspected Soviet-backed
Communist guerrillas launched a civil war
against the Greek government, causing the
West to worry that Soviet influence in
Greece threatened its interests in the
eastern Mediterranean and the Middle
East, especially Turkey and Iran.
• American reaction resulted in the Truman
Doctrine, which called for large-scale
military and economic assistance in order
to prevent communism from taking hold in
Greece and Turkey which in turn lessened
the threat to the entire Middle East, making
it an early version of the “domino theory.”
• The resulting congressional appropriation
reversed the postwar trend toward sharp
cuts in foreign spending and marked a new
level of commitment to the Cold War.
• The Marshall Plan sent relief to devastated
European countries and helped to make
them less susceptible to communism; the
plan required that foreign-aid dollars be
spent on U.S. goods and services
• The Marshall Plan met with opposition in
Congress until a Communist coup occurred in
Czechoslovakia in February 1948, after which
Congress voted overwhelmingly to approve
funds for the program.
• The Marshall Plan (from its enactment,
officially the European Recovery Program
(ERP)) was the primary plan of the United
States for rebuilding the allied countries of
Europe and repelling communism after
World War II. The initiative was named for
United States Secretary of State George
Marshall and was largely the creation of
State Department officials, especially
William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan
• Map of ColdWar era Europe
showing
countries that
received
Marshall Plan
aid. The red
columns show
the relative
amount of total
aid per nation.
• The reconstruction plan was developed at a
meeting of the participating European
states in July 12 1947. The Marshall Plan
offered the same aid to the Soviet Union
and its allies, if they would make political
reforms and accept certain outside
controls. In fact, America worried that the
Soviet Union would take advantage of the
plan and therefore made the terms
deliberately hard for the USSR to accept.
• Over the next four years, the United States
contributed nearly $13 billion to a highly
successful recovery; Western European
economies revived, opening new
opportunities for international trade, while
Eastern Europe was influenced not to
participate by the Soviet Union.
Stalin’s Response: Berlin Blockade
• The United States, France, and Britain initiated
a program of economic reform and the
formation of the Federal Republic of Germany,
this was to include West Berlin deep inside
Soviet Territory – it was to be rebuilt and
closely tied to the West via the Marshall Plan.
• This alarmed the Soviets
• Yugoslavia
• Israel
• Occupation
zones after
1945
Berlin Airlift
1948-1949
• On June 24, 1948, the Cold War began in the
war-torn, divided city of Berlin. The Soviets,
who controlled all of East Germany and the
eastern half of Berlin, blocked all access to
the American and British-controlled West
Berlin, choking commerce and starving the
people.
• The Soviet goal was to expel the Allied forces,
who had long been a thorn in Stalin's side.
But Western forces refused to abandon the
city. President Harry Truman proclaimed,
"We stay in Berlin. Period." To do so would
mean attempting the impossible: supplying
two million civilians and twenty thousand
Allied soldiers with food and fuel -- entirely
from the air.
• President Harry Truman proclaimed, "We stay
in Berlin. Period."
• To do so would mean attempting the
impossible: supplying two million civilians and
twenty thousand Allied soldiers with food and
fuel -- entirely from the air.
• On its biggest day, the "Easter parade" of April
16, 1949, the airlift sent 1,398 flights into
Berlin -- one every minute. Before it was all
over, more than 278,000 flights would carry
2.3 million tons of relief supplies.
Candy Bomber
• One of the heroes of the airlift, U.S. pilot Gail
Halverson, dropped thousands of tons of
chocolate and sweets into the thankful hands
of German children, earning himself the title
of Candy Bomber.
Col Halverson’s Message
• “do things for others
because it’s the right
thing to do, not because
of any rewards that
might come out of it.”
“It’s called service before self,”
NATO/1949-1950
• In April 1949, the United States entered into its
first peacetime military alliance since the
American Revolution—the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO)—in which twelve nations
agreed that an armed attack against one of them
would be considered an attack against all of them.
• NATO also agreed to the creation of the Federal
Republic of Germany (West Germany) in May
1949; in October, the Soviets created the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany).
• The Soviets organized the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance in 1949 and the military
Warsaw Pact in 1955.
• In September 1949, American military intelligence
had proof that the Soviets had detonated an
atomic bomb; this revelation called for a major
reassessment of American foreign policy.
• To devise a new diplomatic and military blueprint,
Truman turned to the National Security Council
(NSC), an advisory body established by the
National Security Act of 1947 that also created
the Department of Defense and Central
Intelligence Agency.
• The National Security Council gave a report,
known as NSC-68, recommending the
development of a hydrogen bomb,
increasing U.S. conventional forces,
establishing a strong system of alliances,
and increasing taxes in order to finance
defense building.
• NSC-68 was a 58-page classified report
written in February-April 1950 by Paul Nitze
and issued by the United States National
Security Council on April 14, 1950 during
the presidency of Harry Truman. The
report, written in the aftermath of the
decision to build a hydrogen bomb, was
declassified in 1977 and has become one of
the classic historical documents of the Cold
War era.
• The Korean War, which began two months
after NSC-68 was completed, helped to
transform the report’s recommendations into
reality, as the Cold War spawned a hot war.
• War justified recommendations of NSC-68
• Administration took many steps to pursue the
nation’s interests abroad
• Increase in military budgets and bureaucracies
– RAND
• Nation came to oppose any political
movement that was left-leaning
• Containment framed in defensive terms
• NSC-68 was a 58-page classified report
written in February-April 1950 by Paul Nitze
and issued by the United States National
Security Council on April 14, 1950 during
the presidency of Harry Truman. The
report, written in the aftermath of the
decision to build a hydrogen bomb, was
declassified in 1977 and has become one of
the classic historical documents of the Cold
War era.
China
• American policy in Asia was based as much on
Asia’s importance to the world economy as on
the desire to contain communism.
• After dismantling Japan’s military forces and
weaponry, American occupation forces
drafted a democratic constitution and
oversaw the rebuilding of the economy.
• In China, a civil war had been raging since
the 1930s between Communist forces, led
by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and
conservative Nationalist forces, under
Chiang Kai-shek.
• For a time the Truman administration
attempted to help the Nationalists by
providing more than $2 billion in aid, but in
August 1949 aid was cut off when reform
did not occur; in October 1949 the People’s
Republic of China was formally established
under Mao, and Chiang Kai-shek’s forces
fled to Taiwan.
• The “China lobby” in Congress viewed Mao’s
success as a defeat for the United States; the
China lobbies influence blocked U.S. recognition
of “Red China” leading instead to U.S. recognition
of the exiled Nationalist government in Taiwan.
• The United States also prevented China’s
admission to the United Nations; for almost
twenty years U.S. administrations treated
mainland China, the world’s most populous
country, as a diplomatic nonentity.
Korea
• Truman ordered U.S. troops to repel the
invaders, leading to three years of vicious
fighting. An armistice, brokered by President
Eisenhower, was signed in July 1953. Korea
was divided near the original border at the
thirty-eighth parallel.
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Korean War
• At the end of World War II, both the Soviets and
the United States had troops in Korea and divided
the country into competing spheres of influence
at the thirty-eighth parallel.
• The Soviets supported a Communist government,
led by Kim Il Sung, in North Korea and the United
States backed a Korean nationalist, Syngman
Rhee, in South Korea.
• On June 25, 1950, North Koreans invaded across
the thirty-eighth parallel; Truman asked the
United Nations Security Council to authorize a
“police action” against the invaders.
Containment?
McArthur
War At Home
• The Security Council voted to send a
“peacekeeping” force to Korea; though fourteen
non-Communist nations sent troops, the UN
army in Korea was overwhelmingly American,
and, by request of Truman to the Security Council,
headed by General Douglas MacArthur.
• Months of fighting resulted in stalemate; given
this military stalemate, a drop in public support,
and the fact that the United States did not want
large numbers of troops tied down in Asia,
Truman and his advisors decided to work toward
a negotiated peace.
• MacArthur, who believed that the future of
the United States lay in Asia and not in
Europe, tried to execute his own foreign
policy involving Korea and Taiwan and was
drawn into a Republican challenge of
Truman’s conduct of the war.
• Truman relieved MacArthur of his
command based on insubordination,
though the decision to relieve him was
highly unpopular; after failing to win the
Republican presidential nomination in
1952, MacArthur faded from public view.
• Two years after truce talks began, an
armistice was signed in July 1953; Korea
was divided near the original border at the
thirty-eighth parallel, with a demilitarized
zone between the countries.
• Truman committed troops to Korea without
congressional approval, setting a precedent
for other undeclared wars.
• The war also expanded American
involvement in Asia, transforming
containment into a truly global policy.
• During the war, American defense
expenditures grew from $13 billion in 1950
to $50 billion in 1953; though they dropped
after the war, defense spending remained
at over $35 billion annually throughout the
1950s.
• American foreign policy had become more
global, more militarized, and more
expensive; even in times of peace, the
United States functioned in a state of
permanent mobilization.