Truman And The Cold War Essay

From inter-Allied agreements concluded during World War I and the published statements of leading public figures, notably Russian and Czech, emerges the Czarist Government's Grand Design for eastern Europe: the frontier of Russian Poland was to have been pushed westward towards Stettin, bringing within the Russian Empire the Polish provinces of Germany and Austria; the north-eastern provinces of Hungary were to be ceded to Russia and a Greater Serbia and Greater Rumania were to receive additional territories carved from Hungary, leaving the latter country a small state wedged between Serbia (Yugoslavia), Rumania and a Kingdom of the Czechs ruled by a Russian Prince; and Russia was to receive the European possessions of Turkey inclusive of the Straits.The aggregate of annexed territories, protectorates, alliances and Pan-Slav affiliations would have extended Russian influence to the Oder River, the Alps, the Adriatic and the Aegean.

Tags: Essay On Hobby And InterestsSam Walton Entrepreneur EssayMarco Polo EssayIntroductory Essays About YourselfSaid Hassan ThesisEssays Of AliaHow Do My Book Report

X's analysis does not, the pattern and plan, not merely the generalized fact, of Soviet expansion, and also the causes and the issues of the diplomatic conflict in the postwar period–1945-1947.

The westward expansion of the Russian frontier and of the Russian sphere of influence, though always a Russian aim, was accomplished when, as, and because the Red Army defeated the German army and advanced to the center of Europe.

The total area acquired by Russia between 19 is approximately as large as the total area lost between 19.

Russia has redeemed the hostages she gave to defeat, revolution and national self-determination." "The western frontiers of the Soviet Sphere of Influence coincide so closely with those Czarist Russia planned to draw after the defeat of the Central Powers that Czarist and Soviet policies appear to differ as regards methods only.

It restores Russia to the geographical positions held by the last Romanovs.

The Baltic Republics and Bessarabia reverted–as, writing nearly twenty years ago, Isaiah Bowman predicted–to Russian domination; the territorial clauses of the Peace Treaty with Finland, outright cession of the Karelian Isthmus and Petsamo Province, and lease of a naval base at Porkkla-Udd, reinstate Russia actually, although not formally, in her pre-1917 positions on the Baltic and Arctic coasts; and Russian magnanimity towards Poland is rewarded by valuable gains in East Prussia, Bukovina and the Carpathians.The Czarist project, cleansed of the dynastic and social pre-conceptions of Czardom, took shape in the system of annexed territories, occupation zones, friendly regimes and ideological affiliations which constitutes the Soviet sphere of influence in Europe.It is only at the Straits that the Soviet Government failed to attain the goals set by its predecessors." This explains, as Mr.The publication spoke out against the policy of containment held by President Truman and Mr."X" and popularized the term "Cold War," which was first introduced by Truman advisor Bernard Baruch in a congressional debate in April 1947. "X" was the author of an article printed in Foreign Affairs called "The Sources of Soviet Conduct." Mr. Kennan, director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff -- defined the policy of containment that the United States should employ towards Soviet expansion.By forcing us to expend our energies and our substance upon these dubious and unnatural allies on the perimeter of the Soviet Union, the effect of the policy is to neglect our natural allies in the Atlantic community, and to alienate them.They are alienated also by the fact that they do not wish to become, like the nations of the perimeter, the clients of the United States in whose affairs we intervene, asking as the price of our support that they take the directives of their own policy from Washington. Their cities and their fields would be the bases and the bridgeheads in a total war which, because it would merge into a general civil war, would be as indecisive as it was savage.We have a clearer picture of the misunderstandings and suspicions of the period.This extract is from a paper written by an American academic historian.It will be evident, I am sure, to the reader who has followed the argument to this point that my criticism of the policy of containment, or the so-called Truman Doctrine, does not spring from any hope or belief that the Soviet pressure to expand can be "charmed or talked out of existence." I agree entirely with Mr.X that we must make up our minds that the Soviet power is not amenable to our arguments, but only "to contrary force" that "is felt to be too strong, and thus more rational in the logic and rhetoric of power." My objection, then, to the policy of containment is not that it seeks to confront the Soviet power with American power, but that the policy is misconceived, and must result in a misuse of American power.