The American Policy of Containment (Essay Sample)

The American Policy of Containment
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Doctrines are statement of major policy importance declared officially by the president of the United States pertaining foreign relations. The policy of containment was adopted by President Harry Truman; it meant that communism influence and its ideologies should be contained within the areas occupied by the soviet forces. The policy became known as the Truman’s Doctrine.
The aftermath of the world war two saw the Germans leave Greece. They had virtually destroyed vital infrastructure and inflation was at a high rate. Truman felt that Greece needed help for it to be a self-supporting democracy. He believed that ‘if Greece should fall under the control of an armed minority the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious confusion and disorder might spread throughout the middle east’ this brings out the ‘Domino theory’ which posits, ‘if the United States didn’t take a strong stand against communist pressure in one country, the country would become communist and would in turn expose its neighbors to communist pressure’ (Fansworth, 1992, p. 223).
Containment was also reiterated when Truman said that ‘I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation’ as one author pointed out, with that sentence, ‘The president had captured the quintessence of containment’ (Donovan, 1967, p. 201).This was extended to the Korean war whereby the United states provided large scale military aid to South Korea and at some point intervened with its own forces to avoid an invasion by the Communist North Korea.( Donovan, 1967)
Ideologies outlined succinctly in the Truman’s doctrine didn’t accurately mirror the development of the American society. It was a sarcastic move by the United States government to send black soldiers to war torn areas to fight for the rights and liberties of subjugated people yet at home, the same soldiers did not have the pleasure of enjoying those rights.
Whilst the policy of containment encapsulated the safeguarding of the world’s people from political oppression and subjugation, he didn’t protect the United States citizenry from those very subjugations. This was illustrated by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s political witch hunts, famously coined as ‘McCarthyism’ which restricted dissent or political criticism as captured well in the Tyding’s Committee Report: ‘The spectacle (McCarthyism) is one we would expect in a totalitarian Nationâ€&...