American Foreign Policy during the Cold War
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The Berlin Airlift was an effective policy to thwart international communist expansion in Berlin during the Cold War. After World War II, Berlin was in dire because Germany had been ruined. Approximately 2.5 million Berliners who were still living in the war-ravaged city survived on scarce food and shelter was hard to find (Westad, 2017). To begin rebuilding, the Allies divided Germany between U.S, Great Britain, and Russia. Berlin was also split into two with the eastern zone being controlled by the soviet and the western by the U.S, UK, and France. Unfortunately, Berlin was located far within Russia’s East Germany and therefore the Soviets took advantage of leading to the first Berlin crisis of the cold war. The Soviet forces barricaded all the road, rail, and waterways entering Berlin’s Allied controlled zone cutting short the supply of food, coal, and other necessities. To supply these necessities to the allied sectors, the U.S took to the sky because the Soviets could not block the airspace. Later, the Soviets gave in and lifted the blockade after they realized that things were not going on well for them. The airlift demonstrated America’s innovative spirit, efficiency, perseverance, and leadership. It also showed the value of cooperation and the need to have allies to complete a task that one country cannot do alone.
America’s containment policy was a strategy to resist communist expansion throughout the world by military, political and economic means. This was a product of the post-war structure of international powers and the desire of the U.S leaders to avoid another war (Mead, 2013). This strategy was remarkably effective because its pursuit led to a direct radical change in the global positioning of the U.S. by the mid-50s, the U.S had military bases in thirty-six countries across the globe proving the expansion of its influence and global power.
The Marshall plan was a European Recovery Program that was proposed by Truman and the secretary of the U.S George C. Marshall. The program was geared towards helping the European nations to boost their economy which had been seriously destroyed by the war. The plan was to curtail communism that was making significant inroads in both Italy and France taking advantage of the disastrous conditions of the European nations. According to Mead (2013), the plan stipulated that the European nations had to work together to receive aid, thereby enforcing unity through enticement, while seeking to undercut the political popularity of French and Italian communists and discouraging moderates from forming a government with them. The Soviets declined the aid from the Marshall Plan and forbade the communists’ states of Eastern Europe to accept the U.S Aid. The plan was effective because those countries that accepted the aid begun to realize economic recovery.
The United States should have feared international communist subversion during the Cold War era. This is because, after World War II, the democratic U.S and the Communist Soviet Union became entangled in a series of largely political and economic clashes giving rise to the Cold War. The rivalry between the two superpowers raised concerns that the communists and leftist sympathizers inside America could work with the soviet spies to pose a great danger to the U.S security. Westad (2017) asserts that these fears were not unfounded as the Soviet Union had carried out several espionage activities inside America with the help of U.S citizens especially during the Second World War This led to the Red Scare hysteria of anticommunist in the U.S. this period was marked by a range of actions that had a great and enduring effect to the U.S government and the entire society. The federal employees had to be analyzed to determine their loyalty to the U.S government. The allegations of subversion in the government and the atmosphere of fear and repression associated with the Red Scare began to ease towards the end of the 1950s. However, this hysteria continued to influence the U.S political debate for decades thereafter. In American history, the Red Scare is quoted as an example of how unfounded fears can compromise civil freedom.
References
Westad, O. A. (2017). The Cold War: a world history. Basic Books.
Mead, W. R. (2013). Special Providence: American foreign policy and how it changed the world. Routledge.