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A State of Clear and Present Danger: A History of American Foreign Policy during the Cold War

by Tom Wheat

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Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Conclusion

Of Further Interest

Middle East
Research Links
Historical Documents

Historiagraphy

Chomsky on Terror
Iriquois Confederacy

Global Consumerism

Chinese & Russian Revolutions

Cold War International History Project 

 

 

 

In the next section of this paper an analysis of Melvyn P. Leffler's theory on reasons for cold war escalation shall now follow.

 The Road to Korea

 

Historian Melvyn P. Leffler in his essay, "A Preponderance of Power," summarizes the key factors as to why the Cold War originated, and how it came to be mutually self reinforcing for both systems. First he argues that the US emerged as the most powerful and industrialized nation in the world after WWII. With this in fact the US emerged as the leader in the global and political and economic system and for the first time demonstrated a willingness to manage that system. The examples of this were the development of the IMF and the World Bank. As such Leffler argues that American policymakers were envisioning a multipolar world.

"Having learned the bitter Lessons of the interwar era, the United States would join the United Nations and play a constructive role in the international economy."(Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, 296)

The only thing standing in the way of peace and prosperity Leffler argued was essentially complicated hegemonic idealism, by both parties since Europe was effectively carved in half by the US and the Soviet's and neither had a means for resolution, rather a system of peace through confrontation, forestalling total war.

Leffler also argues that four factors stood in the way of US policy goals. Furthermore, Leffler asserts that these factors as perceived by US policymakers where what had created the Cold War and came to characterize US Cold War policy.

The first factor was the security threat posed by occupying soviet armies based in Eastern Europe and North East Asia. Secondly the rise of Leftist ideology and political support in countries such as Italy, France, Greece, China, and Korea meant attempts by the Soviet regime to exercise through its perceived satellite countries, attempts to thwart "liberal capitalist multilateralism." If these countries were allowed to become Communist then it would undermine the Western Alliance and strengthen the Soviet Sphere of influence. The Third Factor was the notion of emerging nationalism in Japan and Germany might endear these two countries to join the Soviet orbit with promise of markets and revenge upon the West. The fourth factor was nationalism in the Third World. It wasn't that nationalism itself was a bad thing rather nationalism in the third world due to its location on the peripherary had few models of economic development to turn towards and chiefly the one that was most favorable carried the ideology of anti-imperialism, and that was Marxism. Marxism was attractive because it made the state all-powerful and offered a simple explanation to people's marginal status in the global economic balance of power system. To the US this was just another ideology that was a symptomatic feature of totalitarianism that had already caused one world war, and the lessons learned from that war was that totalitarian states are never happy unless they are expanding their borders.

The US then saw its role as offering economic assistance to embattled countries undergoing Nationalist revolts. This put the US in a position that it had never been in before. Foreign elites such as China's Chiang Kai Shek were major problems and undermined at times US credibility as a long-term player in Third World Affairs. This was a major discontinuity in the history of American foreign relations in that now it had political and military commitments throughout the globe that had previously not been its responsibility. With the demise of European Colonialism after WWII the US was faced with the same problems as the prior balance of power system and often they could as in the Third World at times, scarcely be perceived as no different than the conquerors of the past.

For the US the view was different rather there was a need for Europe and Asia to be integrated into a core-peripherary economic and political relationship. To do this as Leffler argues:

"..They came to believe that ever more weapons were necessary to support the risk taking that inhered in co-opting the industrial core of Eurasia and in integrating its underdeveloped periphery..eventually rearmament became the essential prerequisite to America's diplomatic, economic and political initiatives." (Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, 298)

Leffler concludes that as colonialism declined there was no stable force in the region in the third world, and that any revolt came to be defined by US policymakers as the work of the Soviets. Thus, the US developed a policy of mutual assistance for friendly regimes, and a development of covert paramilitary operations, to overthrow leftist regimes and or to protect those current regimes from being overthrown. The problem, which more or less was the cause of the inequity in this relationship, was that Europe had the administrative ability to unite, with NATO to back it up, and rather Asia fragmented after years of colonialism had no such capabilities.

Thus, what ended up happening was the US mistaking civil wars as grand communist plots and often the US would also become the aggressors, making those countries more or less fertile breeding grounds for Soviet ideological encroachment.

Leffler essentially argues that in 1946-1947 that America felt that its "..core values..democracy, free enterprise, pluralism and territorial security were being threatened."(America in the World, 266) With the Soviet threat and the precarious nature of the core and periphery, the Truman administration adopted a two-prong approach. While briefly scaling back containment, it adopted move towards globalism and maintenance of the international economy. Every major raw market attained the level of utmost importance. Leffler argues that the Soviets possessed no military threat at this time until 1949 and rather the US was also establishing an intelligence network around the globe to augment its political and economic influence. The US conception of the "Soviet threat" was the projected effect that potential Soviet expansion could have on the international system. From the perspective of the West, At a state to state level, Leffler argues that there were legitimate business and domestic interests in maintaining a functional international system, in which the fortunes of the West were now mutually obliged to defend.

The Marshall plan no doubt put the Soviet's on the Defensive. It was implementing a capitalist and world corporatist structure that modeled itself after the US economy. The Marshall plan for America accomplished a policy of double containment in which it contained the economic influence of the Soviet's and at the same time tied German expansion and industrial output to be contained in a system in a system controlled by the US and its Allies. The creation of NATO helped to implement this by combining British, French, and German states into a multilateral military alliance backed by US resolve and military might. To preserve this power the US as Hogan and McCormick agree required a functional relationship with elites who were willing to merge their economies in the new system. McCormick and Cummings both proponents of World Systems theory argue that this was what led to the US coming into conflict with China and Indo China. Japan was viewed as an Asian capitalist hub trade in that continent. However, Japan had invaded Manchuria, Korea, and Indo China for access to raw markets in developing its "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere." The Truman administration as did the later Eisenhower administration viewed the emergence of Communist China as directly threatening this trade, and that China was viewed as potential core hegemon that would seek to incorporate client states traditional to its own historical system of alliances.

The struggle Cummings and McCormick assert was that there was a need to incorporate this underdeveloped peripherary, and to preserve the economic system of Japan as well as increase the vitality of western market diversification. Leffler on world systems theory agrees that this corporatist structure made intervention in Korea and Vietnam unavoidable.

"Aware that Japan traditionally depended on extensive economic ties with Manchuria, North China, and Korea, and noting that most of this area was now in enemy bloc, Acheson and Dulles felt that they had to link Japan and South East Asia. In this interpretation one sees the extent to which US officials believed that the industrial core of the world system had to be integrated with the underdeveloped periphery."(American Foreign Relations Reconsidered, 117)

 ***

The end of America's atomic monopoly marked the end of 1949. Hence NATO expansion was predicated upon neutralizing the new bilateral balance of power system. The Soviets had found a means to attack the power of the alliance by detonating a bomb of their own. Equally unsettling was the establishment of the Communist Republic of China and its desires to establish diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union. The US response to this was National Security Directive 68. NSC 68 directly defined the nature of the system as bipolar and that the conflict between the US and the Soviets was an intractable reality given the two ideologically opposed systems. NSC 68 identified four main Soviet objectives. One was a desire for absolute control within their borders as well as in Eastern Europe. The second factor was that the Soviets were irrational driven by extreme fanaticism and that their main desire was world domination. The third factor was that US soviet conflict was intractable given the nature of both political systems. However, the threat of total nuclear annihilation had to be gauged in dealing directly with Soviets. The final factor then was to contain the autocracy and expansionary aims of the Soviets. Thus, NSC 68 favored a policy massive arms stockpiling and nuclear weapons production and proliferation by the United States.

Hence, Deterrence the first pillar of American foreign policy began to take preeminence over containment, now that such an alliance structure was in place in Europe. By 1952 the US had a fully functional Hydrogen Bomb, and this policy of nuclear weapons stockpiling would carry over into the Eisenhower administration. NSC 68 also called for increasing defense expenditures as well as complimenting Dean Acheson's call for a civilian preparedness program. Unfortunately this last program had a negative residual effect in the McCarthy's communist witch-hunts.

An individual such as McCarthy was able to unite the US citizenry against communism and perhaps spearheaded a willingness to engage the enemy anywhere. The problem was that he was a political opportunist and he used the paranoia through a series of political purges to advance his own political career undermining the cohesion of the state. When he tried to claim that George C. Marshall was a Communist he was defrocked. Thus, in 1955 he was scarcely a memory in Eisenhower's newfound "dollar diplomacy" backed by nuclear missiles.

Historian Walter Lafeber identifies the link between McCarthyism and Acheson's attempt to unite public opinion against communist infiltration ultimately entailing a sacrifice evinced by increased taxes. Acheson was not a willing conspirator in the McCarthy witch hunts rather he viewed the threat of Communism as external beyond US borders yet he required united resolve from the American public to act quickly. Thus, McCarthy provided the popular hysteria, i.e., America's rabid fear of Communist infiltration into every aspect of American life that ultimately lent support for all of Acheson's security proposals. "The time was perfect for McCarthy tactics in early 1950. Even while Acheson was traveling around the country to warn the populace about Communism." (American Age, 510) However, the American public was unmoved until June 26th 1950, when North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel that then the Cold War became a factor of American popular imagination.

 

 

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