The Truman doctrine and the US foreign policy
The Truman doctrine refers to a set of US foreign policy principles that were created on 12th March 1947 by the then US president Mr. Harry S. Truman. Through a speech that he made to the congress of the US, President Truman made a declaration that since US is the leader of the world it must give its support to the process of making the whole world democratic. He also declared that the US must play the leading role in the fight against communism. This doctrine thus represented a harsh component of the containment policy that was being used to curtail the spread of communism. The Truman doctrine declaration effectively served as an inhibitor to coalition government formation with elements of communism (Spalding, p 17).
Through the Truman doctrine, President Truman effectively established that US would offer military, economic and political aid to all states around the world that are democratic in times when they are under threat emanating from either internal or external authoritarian forces. The Truman doctrine thus reoriented the foreign policy of the US, away from its normal position of withdrawing from any regional conflict that is not related in a direct manner to the US, to possible interventions in conflicts that are not directly connected to US (Jones, p 25).
During the time when the Truman doctrine was developed, the government of US was convinced that the Soviet Union was supporting the communists from Greece in their war and was thus feared that should the communists have prevailed in the civil war of the Greeks, then the soviets could eventually have influenced the policy of the Greeks, a fact that the US was against. Indeed, Joseph Stalin, the soviet leader, had intentionally desisted from offering any form of assistance to the communists from Greece thus compelling the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia to do likewise, thus affecting the Yugoslav Soviet relations. There were however some problems in the foreign policy that influenced the decision of Truman in actively assisting Turkey and Greece during the civil war. In the year 1946, there were four major setbacks that effectively served as a barrier in the achievement of a durable post war in the post war era. The failure of the Soviet Union to remove its troops operating in the northern part of Iran in 1946 in accordance with the terms laid down in the 1943 Tehran declaration. The attempts of the soviets of mounting pressure on the government of Iran into granting the union concessions of oil while at the same time provoking irredentism by the separatists of Azerbaijani in the northern part of Iran. The efforts of the soviets of compelling the government of Turkey into giving them the transit and base rights through the straits of Turkey and the rejection of the soviets government of the plan of Baruch for control internationally over the nuclear weapons and energy in 1946 are among the reasons that made president Truman to exert the position of US in the world stage as the nation which is supposed to offer direction in such matters (Gaddis, p 42).
In the light of worsening association with Soviet Union as well as the appearance of the meddling of soviet in Turkish and Greek affairs, the British assistance withdrawal from Greece offered the required catalysts for Trumans administration to effectively reorient the US foreign policy. As a result, through the speech that President Truman gave to the congress concerning the Truman doctrine, he made a request to the congress of offering 400,000,000 value of assistance to both the Turkish and the Greek governments and also support in dispatching the American military personnel and civilians as well as equipments to these nations (Jones, p 56).
In justifying these requests, President Truman used two bases he argued that the victory of the communist forces in the civil of Greek would eventually pose a major threat to the Turkish political stability, which would in the end undermine the Middle East political stability. Such could not be permitted especially in the light of the immense strategic significance of the region to the national security of the United States. He therefore argued that the US had to give assistance to these nations and their people as they struggle against regimes with elements of totalitarianism, since the expansion of authoritarianism would eventually undermine the bases of international peace as well as the US national security. On the second ground, Truman argued that US could no longer sit back and permit the forceful expansion of totalitarianism of the soviets into nations that were free and independent since the national security of US now relied more not just on the American territory physical security, but also on regional conflicts resulting in political instability. Therefore, in a sharp deviation of avoiding extensive commitments in foreign conflicts beyond the western nations during peacetime, it started becoming more actively involved in regional conflicts. The doctrine of Truman committed US to provide assistance in order to protect the integrity of the democratic countries (Spalding, p 61).
Containment and the US foreign policy
The United States government used the containment policy as a strategy for combating the spread of communism. Under the containment policy which was developed from the US foreign policy, the US government used economic, diplomatic, and military strategies in order to curb the expansion of communism and thus enhance the security of the US as well as its influence in foreign nations. This was a major element in the era of the cold war the containment policy was used in order to respond to various moves that were being made by the union of the soviets to spread the influence of communism to Korea, China and Eastern Europe. This policy was part of the US foreign policy of making the world democratic. It symbolized as center position between rollback and appeasement. This policy was a US foreign policys description of suppressing communism in order for capitalism and democracy to prevail. The containment policy being part of the foreign policy was extensively used during the era of the cold war in reducing the impact of the soviets in the world stage. By minimizing the soviets influence, the US government hoped to reduce the impact of communism around the world and thus make the ideology irrelevant and overtime remove it from the world map (Gaddis, p 63).
As a result of the victory of the communists in the second Indochina conflict, the democrats of US started viewing the advance of communism as a course that was inevitable but the republicans went back to the rollback doctrine. Reagan, who was a firm advocate of the rollback doctrine, was voted in as the US president in the 1980 presidential elections. He took an approach that was very aggressive in his dealing with USSR. He held to the belief that dtente was basically misguided and that it was tantamount to have peaceful co-existence. When Afghanistan was attacked by the Soviet Union in 1979, the policy makers of US feared that the soviets intended to control the Persian Gulf. In the whole of 1980s, the United States through its president, Mr. Reagan used its foreign policy to assist the guerillas from Afghanistan in their war against the soviet forces. The aim of the US government in assisting Afghanistan in terms of military as well financial support was to ensure that the soviets were defeated via a very expensive military confrontation for the soviets. Reagan went on using the foreign policy of his country to pursue the doctrine of containment in several chief areas. His administration pursued a very comprehensive initiative for nuclear disbarment which was known as STARTI again his policy in Europe went on emphasizing a defense approach that was NATO based (Gaddis, p 67).
The US foreign policy in the Vietnam War
The Vietnam War is probably the longest conflict that US has ever participated in its entire history. The Vietnam conflict was basically a conflict between the North Vietnamese who were communists and their southern counterparts who were anti communists. During this particular conflict, the United States participated actively through its foreign policy of intervening in matters of other sovereign nations. It therefore supported the French southern Vietnamese forces in the conflict so as to fight against the northern Vietnamese. In the early stage of the conflict, US only provided financial support to the southern Vietnamese side of the conflict but it later provided them with military personnel support as the war intensified. Were it not for the foreign policy of US, the country would not have participated in this long conflict (Melanson, p 71).
One of the major factors that led to the Vietnam War that took place between the late 1950s and mid 1970s ideological difference between the southern Vietnamese who were opposed to communism and their northern counterparts who were advocating for communism in their country. One of the major objectives of the foreign policy of US was ensuring that communism is prevented from spreading and that the world adopts democracy. Because the conflict involved a strong desire by the communist nations of expanding the ideology to regions where it was previously not being used, the United States perceived this as a threat to the American security as well as that of the entire world. The communist nations such as China and the Soviet Union of spreading the ideologies of communism prompted the United States to intervene in the conflict in order to prevent the communism ideology from spreading further (Dumbrell and Barrett, p 76).
The US thus joined the Vietnam War in order to prevent the communists from taking over South Vietnam, which the US perceived as the communists wider containment strategy. According to the foreign policy of the United States, the US government was under obligation of ensuring that South Vietnam or any other region was not forced to be ruled under communism political ideologies. The US considered communism to be a mode of governance through which the rights of people being governed are massively abused and violated by the governments. The US government argued that virtually all the government regimes under communism used totalitarianism as a mode of governance and thus greatly oppressed the people who were being governed. The US was against the spread of communism since it advocated for the embracement of democracy as the ideal mode of governance. The only way to achieve this was to ensure that communism is wiped out of the nations and only democratic mode of governance is advocated (Wittkopf, p 84).
Prevention of the spread of communism thus became the major reason for the United States to involve itself in a conflict that was outside its physical boundaries. It therefore used its foreign policy to prevent communism from undermining the human rights, democratic process as well as the regional and national security of the United States. In addition, the US foreign policy was firmly against the force that was being used by the communist nations in compelling other nations to embrace their ideologies, which according to the Americans were wicked and had already been outdated. The US foreign policy was effectively used in intervening in security matters of a sovereign nation since the conflict had the likelihood of spilling over either directly or indirectly into the United States and thus threaten the national security of the United States (Melanson, p 89).
The US entered the conflict incrementally in a sequence of steps, since the conflict took almost two decades, various US presidents such as Truman and Kennedy propagated the desires of the countrys foreign policy. In the early stages of the war, the then US president Mr. Truman approved a modest program that involved military and economic assistance to French who were struggling in the conflict in order to retain their control in their Indochina colony. The US was advocating for continued stay of the French in this colony since they were assisting the Americans to make the region to embrace both capitalistic as well as democratic ideologies. The Frenchs continued stay in the Indochina region was a great benefit to the United States since the French forces would have continued suppressing the communism forces and thus reduce the impact of communism in the region over time (Dumbrell and Barrett, p 91).
Unfortunately for the United States, the French forces were overcome by the communist Vietnamese forces, compelling them to give up on this colony. When President Dwight took office, he had no alternative but to also apply the US foreign policy in the region. He took over the control of the region from the French and dispatched several military advisers to the region in order to train the army of the South Vietnam. The main aim of this move by President Dwights administration was to empower the military force of the South Vietnam so that it could be better equipped in terms of both military personnel and equipment to fight the North Vietnam that was largely communists. The same process continued through the administrations that followed such as those of President Kennedy and Johnson (Melanson, p 98).
The most evident element of US in the Vietnam conflict was that, the US government pursued its objectives stipulated in its foreign policy to ensure that even though the Indochina region is outside its physical territories it did not threaten the security of the United States or that of the international community. It also aimed at ensuring that communism did not spread to other regions such as South Vietnam (Wittkopf, p 104).
The US foreign policy under the administration of President Bush
In the recent history of the United States, the administration of President Bush is probably the one that has extensively used the US foreign policy in order to attack sovereign nations. In the year 2001, US suffered perhaps the most severe invasion when the members of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization hijacked aircrafts, which they used to attack the US. As a result of this incident, the administration of the former US president was prompted to launch war against terrorism all over the world. In the year 2001, his administration attacked Afghanistan despite the fact that the nation is sovereign. The main reason as to why Afghanistan was attacked was because it is believed that the country acts as the main hideout for the terrorist organization of the Al Qaeda (Klinkner, para 3).
Although the United States was a direct victim of the September 11th terrorist attack, the main reason that prompted it to attack Afghanistan was because its support to the terrorist community by providing them with safe havens was threatening the world peace and had to be stopped at all cost. The Bush administration argued that since Afghanistan was supporting the terrorists together with their activities, then it was posing a security threat not only to the United States but also to the entire region. In order to ensure that all Americans as well as people from the international community lived free from fear of any terrorist attack, the Bush administration argued that it was mandated by the foreign policy of the country (Thacker-Kumar and Campbell, para 5).
The United States thus sent its troops to Afghanistan, with the mission of crashing the terrorists in the country so as to free the Americans and indeed the whole world from constant attacks from the terrorists of the Al Qaeda organization or any other such organization in the world. Were it not for the US foreign policy, then probably the country would never have probably attacked a sovereign nation. Instead, it would have ensured that its physical territories were safe from such attacks and thus would have concentrated less on whatever was happening outside the country. However, since its foreign policy allowed it to intervene in international matters, especially in circumstances that make it evident that such matters have the potential of posing real or perceived security threat to the Americans or to the international community (Fox, para 6).
During the same administration of President Bush, pressure mounted on the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein over the allegations that his country was manufacturing weapons capable of causing mass destruction. Again, the administration of President Bush used the foreign policy of US to attack Iraq because it believed that the weapons that Iraq was possessing were posing a security threat not only to the Iraqi people and the Americans but to the entire world. The US government thus used its foreign policy in attacking a sovereign nation in order to ensure that Iraq ceased being a security threat to the world.
According to the US and most of the international community, the weapons that Iraq was manufacturing posed a major security threat to the region and thus had to be stopped by all means possible. In addition, to the weapons that the Iraqi government was manufacturing, there were also allegations that the regime of Saddam was offering assistance to terrorist organizations thus posing further security threat. In order to prevent Saddams regime from continuing posing massive security threat to the region as well as globally, the US government under the leadership of President Bush invaded the country in 2003 (Thacker-Kumar and Campbell, para 7).
It was also evident that the regime of president Saddam was massively violating human rights and freedom of its citizens. His leadership was authoritative and was thus very oppressive on the citizens of Iraq. The US foreign policy also allows it to intervene in matters of another nation irrespective of the sovereignty of such a country if there is evidence beyond doubt that the government in such a country is violating the human freedoms and rights of its citizens. Since this was the case in Iraq, whereby the Iraqi people were massively oppressed by Saddams regime, the US government was compelled to intervene and thus rescue the Iraqi people from the oppressive regime (Harding, para 8).
Conclusion
For several decades, the US government has continuously used its foreign policy to intervene in international matters that do not affect the United States in a direct sense but which of course affects it indirectly due to the regional political instability that arise as a result of the regional conflicts. In more recent years, there has been a shift of the US foreign policy from preventing communism expansion to suppressing terrorism and terrorists activities which have emerged as the new security threats of the modern world. Although any country that is sovereign has the duty of carrying on its responsibilities as it deems fit, the United States is allowed by its foreign policy to intervene in such a country if there is enough evidence showing that the governments of such countries pose a major security threat either to the US or to the international community. The main aim of such intervention is to ensure that such security threats are eliminated as soon as possible.
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