From the Grand
Alliance to
Containment
Cold War Politics and Truman
Marshall Plan
“European Recovery
Plan”, US spent $13
billion to restore the
economies of 16
Western European
nations [which in turn
helped the US economy]
• Soviet Union did not
participate because it
objected to free
enterprise
General George C. Marshall, Secty of State
“Iron Curtain”
• Term coined by Winston Churchill in 1946
• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent.”
Containment
• The foreign policy of the US to hold in check the power and
influence of the Soviet Union and others espousing
communism.
Containment
• The strategy first articulated
by diplomat George F. Kennan
in 1946-47.
• Kennan believed that Stalin
exaggerated foreign press to
maintain power in his own
country, because it was
increasingly politically and
economically unstable
• Kennan predicted that The
Soviet Union would only
retreat from expansionist
efforts “in the face of superior
force.” [containment]
Truman containment policy had sixpronged defense strategy:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Development of atomic weapons
Strengthen traditional military power
Military alliances with other nations
Military and economic aid to friendly nations
An espionage network and secret means to
subvert Soviet expansion
6. a propaganda offensive to win popular
admiration for the US around the world.
Truman Doctrine
• Truman’s claim that American security depended on stopping
any Communist government from taking over any noncommunist government, anywhere in the world. This
approach became the cornerstone of American foreign policy
during the Cold War.
Dean Acheson
What was the Cold War?
• Cold War: the hostile and tense relationship between the
Soviet Union and the US (and other Western nations) from
1947 until 1989
• “cold” because it stopped short of armed conflict, warded off
by the strategy of Nuclear Deterrence
Deterrence
• the strategy of the US that it would maintain a nuclear arsenal
so substantial that the Soviet Union would refrain from
attacking the US and its allies out of fear that the US would
retaliate in devastating proportions. The Soviets pursued a
similar strategy.
Superpower Rivalry Around the Globe
• “third world” a term referring to about forty countries which
had won independence but were not in the Western (first)
world, nor the Soviet (second) world.
• 1949, communists under Mao Zedong took China, chasing
Nationalists under Chang Kai-shek to Tiawan
• People’s Republic of China under Mao signed a treaty with
Soviets
Rivalry, cont’
• Japan rebuilt with American dollars, sides with US
• State of Israel established in Palestine, endorsed by US
Election 1948
Truman and the Fair Deal at
Home
•
•
•
•
Reconverting to a Peacetime Economy
Blacks and Mexican Americans Push for Their Civil Rights
The Fair Deal Flounders
The Domestic Chill: McCarthyism
Second “Red Scare”
•
•
•
•
“Red Scare” happens after a war
After the collapse of the Soviet-American alliance
Suspicions of espionage
“red baiting” = attempts to discredit people by associating
them with communism
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy
House Un-American Activities
Committee
The Cold War Becomes Hot:
Korea
• A Military Implementation of
Containment
• First time Americans go to battle for
containment
• A militarization of American foreign
policy
Korean War
Costs of the War
• Total civilians killed/wounded: 2.5 million
South Korea: 990,968
• 373,599 killed
• 229,625 wounded
• 387,744 abducted/missing
• North Korea: 1,550,000
• US: 36,000 killed, 100,000 wounded
US and USSR
US and USSR
• Stalin died in 1953
• New Soviet premier is
Nikita Khrushchev
• Eisenhower and
Khrushchev meet in
1955 in Geneva, the
first time leaders from
these two countries
have met since WWII
Nuclear Arms Race
and Space Race
Nuclear Arms Race
• 1957, Soviets tested ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile)
• Fears emerged that the US was lagging behind the Soviets
• Signed the National Defense Act (student loan and
scholarships for math science).
• Civil Defense Administration recommended home bomb
shelters
Space Race
• 1957, Sputnik, the first artificial satellite to circle the earth
• The American first satellite was dubbed “Flopnik” because it
exploded
• 1958, Eisenhower established National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA)
“Brinksmanship” and “MAD”
• Secty of State John Foster Dulles, America’s willingness to go
to the “brink” of war as a threat
• “MAD” Mutually assured destruction = nuclear stand-off
1959 “kitchen debate” Nixon and
Khrushchev
• Nixon: “ to make things
easier for our women.”
• Khrushchev: we do not
have the “capitalist
attitude toward
women.”
Cold War had created a warfare
state
• “military-industrial complex”
• A term coined by Eisenhower in his farewell address
• the power and influence of the military and defense contractors
who now controlled the economy
• nearly one of every three California workers held a defenserelated job.
• one in every ten American jobs depended on defense spending
Consequences of the Cold War
• Shifted priorities of the federal government from
domestic to foreign affairs
• Increased the power of the president
• Defense contracts encouraged economic
population booms in the West and Southwest
• The Nuclear Arms races consumed dollars and
resources, skewed the economy toward
dependence on military projects
• Anti-communist hysteria which stifled debate,
politically or socially