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The second part of the 20 th century was marked by the unprecedented confrontation of two superpowers, the USA and the USSR known as the Cold War. The entire world was involved into that confrontation balancing between the global military conflict and the fragile peace. The consequences of the erroneous concept enemies of my strategic enemy are my friends have been observed now from the terrorist acts in Moscow up to the 9 / 11 tragedy in the USA. If it is assumed that the politics is the concentrated expression of economy the confrontation between the superpowers started after the WWII was the confrontation for the world dominance, i. e.
confrontation for the global markets. The World War II was an attempt to violate the balance of political forces in Europe and the defeat of the Nazi Germany could lead to a mis balance between the Eastern and the Central Europe. The doctrine of the export of the revolution and the global Bolshevik revolution could lead to the spread of Bolshevik rule in the Eastern and Central Europe and beyond. The history played the terrible joke with the victors of the WWII and former allies were destined to the long confrontation first of all due to their ideological differences. There was nothing to do for the United States but to accept the challenge of the history and get involved to the confrontation with the USSR.
The first indication of the US USSR confrontation was articulated by President Truman as a response to the politics of the USSR in Europe and the Middle East which was considered to be aggressive. The growing communist movements in Greece, Iran and Turkey marked the communist expansion of the USSR. Under the Truman Doctrine, the United States was prepared to send any money, equipment, or military force to countries that were threatened by the communist government, thereby offering assistance to those countries resisting communism. In U. S. President Harry S Truman's words, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. " 1 The USSR accepted the Truman Doctrine as an evidence confirming the Lenin's philosophy of the world divided into two hostile camps one of communism and another one is that of capitalism.
Thus American President gave the additional proof of the Communism expansion doctrine. In 1947 Marshall proposed a scheme of extensive aid to all European nations if they could agree on how to revive a working economy, "so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which institutions can exist. " There's no doubt which institutions Marshall had in mind -- a free market economy directed by forces not in Europe but across the Atlantic. Marshall even included the Soviets in his plan. But at a meeting in Paris the following month, the Soviets gave their response to the Marshall Plan by walking out. 2 The USSR considered the Marshall Plan to be an aggressive attempt of the United States to expose the influence on Europe and Japan.
The introduction of the Marshal Plan became the escalating point of the Cold War. The development of the H-Bomb by Soviets in 1945 became the starting point of unprecedented arms race. In his Farewell Address to nation President D. Eisenhower marked the forthcoming threat of the Soviet dominance and called to facilitate the militarization of the American economy. We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method...
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. 3 Alongside with the necessity to strengthen the military potential of the United States President issued a warning about the dangers of special interests behind the war machine. Few presidents ever spoke with the military authority of President Eisenhower. He was speaking about people and interest groups he knew all too well. "We must never let the weight" of the military-industrial complex "endanger our liberties or democratic processes, " he said, measuring his words carefully. "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. " 4 The further escalation of the US-USSR confrontation was developed in the Domino Theory first espoused by name by President Eisenhower in an April 7, 1954 news conference. 5 Such theory is rather controversial. Thus in South Eastern Asia apart from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia the communist regime spread neither to Thailand nor to Indonesia nor any other country. The NSC 68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security, dated by April 14, 1950 identified that the probable fission bomb capability of the Soviet Union have greatly intensified the Soviet threat to the security of the United States.
This threat is of the same character as the described in NSC 20 / 4 (approved by the President on November 24, 1948) but is more immediate than had previously been estimated. 6 The was also a Caribbean crisis with the Soviet attempt to place the missiles in the close neighborhood of the United States, fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. The Cold War is considered to be over at least in the form of the US USSR confrontation. Nowadays world faces the new challenge of combating the terrorism and 9 / 11 attack indicated that the confrontation with the terrorism could be even stronger than that with the global communism influence because the global terrorism may be viewed as a direct consequence of the US USSR confrontation. History did not give the choice for both superpowers after the WWII except of confronting each other for a long period of time.
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Research essay sample on Truman Doctrine Cold War
