American Policies and Actions 1945-1975 Essay

The period 1945-1975 was marked as a war and policy-creation era in US history. Owing to the contextual cold war between the Soviet Union and United States, the US was consequently drawn into the Vietnam War, when the diplomatic relations between the USSR and the US grew more tensed as the Soviet Forces set up a number of Communist governments for a buffer between capitalist West and the Soviet Union had occupied nearly entire Eastern Europe. The Vietnam War is regarded as the most divisive period in the US history because public confidence eroded, the society imploded at the same time when the price of humanity exceeded the limit of tolerance. The presidents who reigned within this era include Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower who had to deal with the challenges of the Cold War, Vietnam war and economy between 1945 to 1953 and 1953 to 1961 respectively (Betts 37-43). In 1961, John F. Kennedy became president, governing the US for three years till 1963 after which his predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson took over in a period marked by significant economic challenges, Civil Rights Movements, Vietnam and looming political pressures to formulate consistent and coherent foreign policies to keep America and its allies secure. The Cold War, which began before the end of WWII, lasted for around 45 years, followed by stiff competition between the USSR and the United States over every continent, every area and space, with the competition extending beyond political, military, strategic and philosophical arenas (The U.S From 1945-1968 2).

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In 1946, Winston Churchill prompted the creation of sudden secrecy between Western and Eastern Europe through his "Iron Curtain speech" which was railed against the USSR. This ensued in the Containment Policy which was used by the United States in the employment of some strategies geared towards the prevention of the spread of communist spheres abroad. The policy, often considered a component to the Cold War era, was a response to multiple moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its sphere of communism in Vietnam, Korea, China, and Eastern Europe. The policy was formulated by George Kennan 1947 as a key strategic move to help the US fight the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Bacon (5) asserts that indeed Kennan faced multiple hurdles in the implementation of the policy consistently and coherently as he held a number of public office roles such as policy advisor, diplomat, critic, policy planner and historian, which in some instances determined his approach and professional take on matters policy formulation and implementation. Through the Containment policy, it was Kennan's hope the US would be in a position to deter the plans of the Soviet Union whose objective entailed advancing their power while weakening the influence and strength of the Western World in the political and economic circle. As Bacon (17) reiterates, the containment policy was both sensitive and impervious to logic of force and reason respectively, setting in motion new thoughts on foreign policy. Reed (4) acknowledges that the US policymakers responded to the Soviet threat through covert interventions, military force as well as economic reprisals to ensure that the spread of communism was deterred by all means.

Between 1948 and 1949, three significant events that entailed the successful attempt by the USSR to drive US forces and its allies out of any access to the city, testing of their first Atomic Bomb and the fall of the Chinese Nationalistic Government under communist forces plunged the United States into immense pressure that the communists were taking over the world. The paranoia prompted {resident Truman and his policymakers to formulate the NSC-68 which advocated for tremendous increases in the military financing of massive US military build-up to deter the Soviet Union.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, through his speech following the fall of Dien Bien Phu (1954), created basic foundations for the initiation of America's Cold War Policy dubbed the Domino Theory, convincing the public on the importance of engaging in the Vietnam War to further deter the spread of communism. The policy aided the French in their fight against all facets of communism in Indochina. The late 1950s and 1960s were characterized by civil rights which prompted the Supreme Court to direct the government to enforce "segregation but equal" treatment for African-Americans. Social aspects of life were immensely influenced by the segregation and discriminative measures under the leadership of Jim Crow. Later, President JF Kennedy issued rules that upheld desegregation, followed by intense Civil Rights demonstrations in 1963 where Martin Luther King lead more than 300,000 people in March focusing on the stalled Civil Rights Bill that proposed the end of segregation, while promoting equal education, equal access to housing and the right to vote (The U.S From 1945-1968 9).

Conclusion

Drawing from the highlights outlined herein to mark the historical events and the policy formulation in the US from 1945-1975, it is rather indisputable that the United States and its involvement in the Cold War against the USSR were meant to ensure that communism doesn't spread to Vietnam and the rest of the World. This was done in a bid to stop any forms of aggression, lessons that the US learned from WWII. It is therefore notable how the US policymakers framed any domestic and international issue in the 1940s and 1950s from a contextual perspective of US versus USSR relations, religiously attempting to prevent the spread of communistic facets and communist subversion under the auspices of the excellent containment policy and Domino theory. From 1945-1960, all that mattered for US leaders and policymakers was the progression of "democracy" by deterring the spread of communist agendas, relations whose height was marked by the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the Cuban Revolution in 1960 where the rise of Nuclear War became a possible reality as the US-USSR relations were under exceptional tension.

Works Cited

Bacon, Leanne MJ. George F. Kennan's strategy of Containment: an assessment of Kennan's coherence and consistency. Diss. University of Birmingham, 2010.

Betts, Richard K. "Wealth, power, and instability: East Asia and the United States after the Cold War." International Security 18.3 (1993): 34-77.

Reed, Benjamin A. American foreign policy in Latin America (1945-1975): the containment policy and the perceptions of "threat." Diss. University of Pittsburgh, 2012.The United States from 1945-1968: Its Complicated (Pp 1-12). HIST 1302-US History from 1877.