A fear shared by the U.S. and Britain was that if Greece became communist, so would Turkey, and the Soviets would control the eastern Mediterranean. The British economy had not recovered from the expenses of WWII, and England was financially unable to continue to prevent the spread of communism to Greece. They turned to the U.S. for assistance. Truman appeared before Congress on March 12, 1947, asking for support of a new policy that would become known as the Truman Doctrine. He detailed the threat of communism, and Congress quickly agreed to allocate the requested $400 million to prevent the fall of Greece and Turkey to the communists.
Beginning in the 1950s, maintaining a non-Communist South Vietnam became crucial in American efforts to contain communism. What was the nation's justification for its actions in South Vietnam in the 1950s and its determination to abide by the outcome of free elections there only if those elections yielded a non-Communist leader? For a long time the United States were in fear of the threat of communism stemming from a direct attack and the aspect of the Cold War, played a vital role in the fears. In the beginning the Vietnam War was first thought to be just another Cold War between northern and southern Vietnam. While the United States was nervous of Communism consuming the entire globe.
Hitler also thought that since the government was just developing it would have been a good time to seize power and take over the government. Finally, Hitler attempted the Munich Putsch also to gain support from the streets but this had failed him. I agree with the statement ‘the Reichstag Fire more important than the Enabling Act in allowing Hitler to consolidate power’ because of several reasons. Firstly, without the Reichstag Fire there wouldn’t have been an Enabling Act. The Reichstag Fire led to the Enabling Act because Hitler had managed to convince Hindenburg that it was a ‘communists uprising’.
Which president was the most responsible for escalating America’s involvement in the Vietnam conflict between 1954 and 1967? After the Korean War, communism in Asia was still a very real threat to America and although there were many different theories on how to combat communism, one thing that was certain was that leaving it to take its course wasn’t on their agenda. President Eisenhower was in power when the Geneva accords took place in 1954 that created the 17th parallel splitting Vietnam in half. He didn’t see this as a victory but half of Vietnam was better than nothing. Eisenhower believed that the conference gave the communist too much power in the north because the population made up a slight majority, this meant that when the elections would take place, the favour would side with the communists.
The focus after the Korean war was the nuclear arms race and to stop the spread of communism mainly. But they also wanted to avoid a nuclear war. The US and NATO forces were placed in countries near Eastern Europe to protect the spread of communism. Each power wanted more nuclear bombs than the other but as long as they were equal no nuclear war would break out. This was the balance of terror.
Truman started at the bottom in terms of what strategy to take in this war. As mentioned in his speech, The Truman Doctrine, his plan of economic aid was to financially support Greece and Turkey to help them stop communism from expanding to other areas (Truman). Through his efforts in military aid, we became allies with Greece by helping them with their military (Truman). Truman created the United Nations to protect us from communism so communists had a bigger force to get through and keep communism out of the US as part of his military use.(Truman). These ideas are just the start of how the United States would deal with the Soviet Union and
The idea of “containment” and not letting the Soviet Union gain influence and control of the region was perhaps the biggest and only factor for the United States assistance in South Vietnam. In its quest for world supremacy, the US felt it had to do anything in its power to ensure that they would remain on top, even if it meant fighting the Soviets in proxy wars like that of Korea and Vietnam. From a strategic and political view, the war was an absolutely necessary and even though many feel the US had lost, they were better off than had they just remained passive and allowed Communism to spread. More than anything, the Vietnam War was a message to the rest of the world that the US could, and more importantly would, engage in conflict in attempt to ensure that democracy remain the prevalent political and economical ideology existent across the
Roosevelt, the president of America, Stalin the general secretary of Russia and Churchill the prime minister of Britain met to talk about how they were going to stop a Hitler (and his army – Nazi’s) from taking over and killing more innocents. They met twice during world war two, and these meetings were called “conferences”. The first time they met was in a city called Teheran in the country of Iran in November 1943. Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to send another group of soldiers to help stop then bad men (Hitler and the Nazis’), they called this action the “second front”. Stalin’s country nicknamed themselves the “Soviet Union” and he got Roosevelt and Churchill to agree that he and the Soviet Union could declare war on Japan once Hitler and Germany were defeated.
By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a strategy called “containment.” Containment was a United States policy using numerous strategies to prevent the spread of communism abroad. This component of the Cold War’s beginning was a response to a series of moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge communist influence in Eastern Europe, China, Korea, and Vietnam. In 1946, the diplomat George Kennan proclaimed that the Soviet Union was “a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent agreement between parties that disagree”; as a result, America’s only choice was to take aim against the Soviet Union in what would be a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies. President Harry Truman decreed, “It must be the policy of the United States, to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by outside pressures.” This way of thinking would begin the first portions of labor that would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades. With the implementation of the containment strategy this provided the rationale for an unprecedented arms buildup in the United States to protect against any and all threats of another foreign attack.
During the civil war, he was consistent in disobeying orders made from Lenin and Trotsky, as they were the main organisers. However, after Lenin’s death, he was elected politburo, in which now he had central power over the Bolshevik party. Trotsky was expected to take power on the death of Lenin but was not as