Foreign Policy of Major Powers

Cold War (1945-1955)

Introduction:
The cold war has been a predominant factor in determining the conduct of
international relations in post-second world war period. The cold war can be
categorized as a period of high level of conflict and competition among the
superpowers but with no direct military conflict. The Soviet Union and United States
of America were the contending parties of this conflict. The world was divided among
two camps one led by U.S, Capitalist bloc and the other led by Soviet Union, the
Communist bloc.

Definition:
The cold war has been defined by Kegely and Wittkopf as;
The forty-two-year (1945-1991) rivalry between the United States and Soviet Union,
as well as their competing coalitions, which sought to contain each other’s expansion
and win worldwide predominance. The term “Cold War” was used in 1947 by
Americans Bernard Baruch to describe the tension between two states. The tension
among superpowers globalized with the passage of time.

Foreign Policy of United States during Cold War:

After Second World War only United States of America and Soviet Union survived as
major powers of the world. The previous multi-polar system transformed into bi-polar
system. The Soviet Union and United States both were ambitious to lead the world as
a role of a major power previously played by Great Britain. United States entered into
an era of globalism and internationalism in its foreign policy and ready to play its role
of hegemonic power. On the other hand, Soviet Union under the leadership of Stalin
were having an agenda of world proletariat revolution and making the “World Soviet
Socialist Republic” by revolution in bourgeoisies’ states.

Soon the world powers surrounded by an air of suspicions and misperceptions against
each other as their fundamental incompatibilities and misperceptions increased. Thus,
it resulted in a cold war.

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 Foreign Policy of Major Powers
1.Interventionism:

American’s interventionist policies did not disappeared with Allied victory in World
War II. The Cold War made interventionism the US foreign policy for the rest of the
century. The Cold War was the state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars,
and economic competition that existed after World War II (1939–1945) between the
Communist World – primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and
the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies. Although
the primary participants' military force never officially clashed directly, they
expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force
deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage
(practice of spying) , propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to
neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the
Space Race.

2.Truman Doctrine and containment policy:

The US foreign policy during the Cold War was the Truman Doctrine, which was to
prevent the expansion of communism to new nations. The Truman Doctrine was a
policy set forth by U.S. President Harry S Truman on March 12, 1947 stating that
the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent
their falling into the Soviet sphere.

Truman stated the Doctrine would be "the policy of the United States to support free
peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation (bring under control) by armed
minorities or by outside pressures." Truman reasoned, because these "totalitarian
regimes" persuade "free peoples," they represented a threat to international peace and
the national security of the United States. Truman made the plea amid the crisis of the
Greek Civil War (1946–1949). He argued that if Greece and Turkey did not receive
the aid that they urgently needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with grave
consequences throughout the region.

In other words, containment was basically the US policy during cold war period to
stop the spread of communism, and the general belief was that the communists (most
of the time the Soviets) would back down.

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Despite being allies against the Axis powers, the USSR and the US disagreed about
political philosophy and the configuration of the post-war world while occupying
most of Europe. The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European
countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some
of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US and its
allies used containment of communism as a main strategy, establishing alliances such
as NATO to that end.

3. Marshall Plan:

The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate (put into force or operation) a more
rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union would not let most
Eastern Bloc members participate. Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia,
the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several
Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with
mixed results. Among the countries that the USSR supported in pro-communist revolt
was Cuba, led by Fidel Castro. The proximity of communist Cuba to the United
States proved to be a center point of the Cold War; the USSR placed multiple nuclear
missiles in Cuba, sparking heated tension with the Americans and leading to the
Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, where full-scale nuclear war threatened. Some
countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-
Aligned Movement.

The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tension – the
Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of
1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet
war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), among others. Both sides sought détente (strange
relations between countries) to relieve political tensions and deter direct military
attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear
weapons.

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4.Increased Economic Pressure on USSR under Reagan Doctrine:

In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic,
military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was
already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reconstruction",
"reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", ca. 1985). The Cold War ended
after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant
military power, and Russia possessing most of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal
(store of weapons).