Ning Chansavath
Wk 3 short essay
March 18, 2015

The Truman Doctrine Foreign Policy was established by President Harry Truman on March of 1947. In the Doctrine it is stated that the United States would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent those countries from falling under the influence of the Soviet Union.

The idea was to prevent Soviet Union’s influence as much as possible. Essentially, this was Truman ways of retaliating towards Josef Stalin and The Soviet Union aggression in Eastern Europe. In the Doctrine, Truman noted that “it will be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities and outside pressures.”

The main audience was wide: this was a clear and strong message to the Soviet Union; a message to Europe, that the U.S. would not tolerate Soviet’s aggression; also a message to the people of Greece and Turkey that the U.S. would side with them; and lastly a message to Congress and the American people that the U.S. would put in a formal policy to prevent the spread of worldwide communism. The U.S will do anything it can to let too many people fall under the rules of communism. Basically it was the message – to the Soviets to “back off”
The Doctrine shaped American Foreign Policy for the next several decades and would result in the Korean War, Vietnam, policies in Asia, Africa and in particular, the stand-off over Cuba in the early 1960s.

We did see it coming then, but the real Cold War was fought economically, which country could afford more military might and foreign aid over time. The CIA was the point agency on the Truman Doctrine Foreign Policy, anti-Soviet behavior, containment and intelligence regarding Communism (China, USSR, etc.) and the Indochina/Vietnam situation. Acting under the containment doctrine developed by State Department’s