Evaluate the impact of Truman’s presidency on the development of the Cold War (1945 – 1952).
The Cold War was a period of political and military conflict following World War II between
Western Bloc powers like the United States, NATO allies, and others and Eastern Bloc powers such as
the Soviet Union and its satellite states. Historians may not completely agree on the dates, although a
frequent time range is the period from 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine, a U.S. policy pledging to
aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism; was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union
collapsed. Shortly after the second world war ended, the US became entangled in an ideological war
with the Soviet Union and other communist states. Therefore, the Cold War had a significant impact on
US politics during Truman's presidency as it increased the fear of communism, both in the US and
abroad, leading to the creation of the Truman Doctrine and also causing the US to become involved in
the Korean War. Therefore, in this essay the impact Truman’s presidency on the development of the
Cold War (1945 – 1952) will be evaluated.
As mentioned before, the first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years following the
end of World War II in 1945. The USSR reinforced its dominance over the republics of the Eastern
Bloc, while the US launched a worldwide containment campaign to oppose Soviet influence, extending
military and financial aid to Western European countries, as well as the formation of the NATO alliance.
The Berlin Blockade was the Cold War's first significant crisis. The war widened with the communist
triumph in the Chinese Civil War and the commencement of the Korean War. The USSR and the US
battled for influence in Latin America, as well as in Africa and Asia's decolonizing republics.
President Harry S. Truman, a Wilsonian internationalist, actively supported the founding of the
United Nations and included Eleanor Roosevelt on the mission to the UN's inaugural General Assembly.
With the Soviet Union spreading its sphere of influence over Eastern Europe. Truman and his foreign
policy advisors took a harsh approach against the Soviet Union. In this, he mirrored mainstream opinion
in the United States, which soon started to portray the Soviets as seeking of world dominance. Despite
claiming little particular knowledge in international affairs, Truman was able to garner bipartisan
support for both the Truman Doctrine, which defined a strategy of Soviet containment, and the Marshall
Plan, which attempted to aid in the reconstruction of postwar Europe. To persuade Congress to commit
the huge sums required to resurrect Europe's dormant economy, Truman made an ideological stance,
claiming that Communism thrives in economically depressed places.
Truman presented Congress with his "Truman Plan" on March 12, 1947, and expanded on it on
July 12, 1948, when he committed to restrict Soviet threats to Greece and Turkey. Normally, no
American military force was involved, but Congress granted free gifts of financial aid to strengthen
Greece's and Turkey's economy and militaries. In general, the Truman Doctrine indicated US backing
for those countries endangered by Soviet communism. This formed the backbone of American foreign
policy, leading to the founding of NATO, a military alliance that still exists today, in 1949. Historians
sometimes cite Truman's speech to pinpoint the start of the Cold War.
The Truman Doctrine was formally expanded to become the foundation of American Cold War
strategy in Europe and across the world. It altered US foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from
tension relief to containment of Soviet expansion, as proposed by diplomat George Kennan. It differed
from rollback by tacitly condoning past Soviet takeovers in Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union closed
off access to the three Western-held areas of Berlin on June 24, 1948. The Allies had never reached an
agreement to ensure supplies of the areas deep within the Soviet-occupied zone. General Lucius D.
Clay, commander of the American occupation zone in Germany, advocated moving a massive armored
column through the Soviet zone to West Berlin with orders to protect it if it were attacked or stopped.
Truman saw this as an unacceptably high chance of conflict.
He agreed to airlift supplies to the blockaded city. On June 25, the Allies launched the Berlin
Airlift, a huge mission that used military planes to supply food and other supplies such as coal. Nothing
like it had ever been attempted before, and no one nation had the logistical or material capabilities to
pull it out. The airlift was successful, and ground access was restored on May 1949. Despite this, the
airlift persisted for several months. The Berlin Airlift was one of Truman's greatest foreign policy
achievements, and it assisted his election campaign greatly. However, this increased tensions with the
USSR.
Without a doubt, the outbreak of the Korean War was one of the most severe consequences of
containment. Kim Il-North Sung’s Korean People's Army invaded South Korea in June 1950. Stalin
planned, prepared, and launched the invasion, developing precise war plans that were relayed to the
North Koreans. To Stalin's shock, the UN Security Council endorsed South Korea's defense, despite the
fact that the Soviets were boycotting sessions at the time in protest at Taiwan's permanent place on the
Council rather than Communist China's. A United Nations force comprised of people from South Korea,
the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Canada, Colombia, Australia, France, South Africa,
the Philippines, the Netherlands, and Belgium and even New Zealand joined to stop the invasion.
Among all the negative consequences the Korean War left, one of the worst was that its
"motivated" NATO to create a military framework. Public opinion in the countries concerned, such as
the United Kingdom, was very different. Many people feared a major conflict with Communist China,
or a possibly nuclear war. The war's strong resistance frequently strained Anglo-American relations.
For these reasons, British authorities hoped for a quick resolution to the conflict, seeking to unify Korea
under UN auspices and withdraw all foreign soldiers. Despite the fact that the Chinese and North
Koreans were exhausted by the war and ready to conclude it by late 1952, Stalin insisted on continuing
the conflict, and the Armistice was signed only in July 1953, after Stalin's death.
In general, we can say that the war had high cost and it used approximately $67 billions of US
aid. This caused inflation and also increased the cost of living in the US to the point where steel workers
went on strike to demand better wages. This showed that Truman was losing popularity amongst the
American people. Many American lives throughout the conflict were lost, with over 34,000 soldiers
dying. As it was an ideological war in a country which few Americans had an attachment to, it was
difficult for Truman to justify to the American people the need to intervene in the conflict. Therefore,
he lost even more support, and the Democrats lost the 1952 presidential election.
In conclusion, the tensions between the Communist Soviet Union and the capitalist United
States extend back to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and grew during the first part of the twentieth
century. Despite the fact that the two countries were partners against Nazi Germany and the Axis forces
during WWII, disagreements over post war rebuilding revived the rivalry between the Soviets and
Americans, to a point when settlement appeared unlikely Europe was divided into the Soviet "Eastern
Bloc" and the Western Bloc. With President Truman's Truman Plan expressing an explicit anti-Soviet
stance and the American government's decision to supply supplies to East Berlin in response to the
Soviet blockade. These tensions escalated into the so-called Cold War, since there was no direct military
confrontation between the Soviet Union and American troops. However, as a result of America's
containment policy, the Cold War witnessed multiple "proxy conflicts," such as the Korean War and
the Vietnam War.