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The european dimension of the cold war david reynolds
Politics and the Cold War
Politics and the Cold War
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To what extent did the Marshall Plan aid Western Europe amidst the devastation of post-WWII?
A. Plan of Investigation
As one of the major theatres of the Second World War, Western Europe was left thoroughly ravaged. Conditions were bleak financially and this area was considered to be the most susceptible to communism. Not only was it geographically closest to a Soviet threat, but it was also the most socially vulnerable. This investigation will attempt to answer the following question: To what extent did the Marshall Plan aid Western Europe amidst the devastation of post-WWII? Two main sources including Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley’s Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938, and The USA and the Cold War, 1945-63 by Oliver Edwards will be assessed on their origin, purpose, value, and limitation. This essay will focus on how through the economic aid of the Marshall Plan, America was able to prevent further westward Soviet expansion in Europe, and restore power to the Great Powers of Western Europe. This essay will not, however, assess the initial congressional and public resistance of the plan and the change in public opinion or the Soviet rejection of the Marshall Plan, and the origins of European division and the Cold War. By stimulating the post-WWII recovery of Western Europe through American economic aid, the US was able to protect the capitalist nature of Western European governments from further Soviet expansion and political seizure.
B. Summary of Evidence
Aid from the Marshall Plan accelerated the economic recovery of Western European nations after the comprehensive desolation of WWII.
During its four operational years, the Marshall Plan sent $13 billion in aid to 16 Western European countries. By...
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...sed by author Oliver Edwards through the rest of the chapter, a secondary source, regarding the execution of Marshall Plan. Furthermore, the assessment provides an abundance of statistics with regard to the deployment of the program and how Western Europe was aided economically. Despite the apparent value it possesses, this book is limited in regard to the content on the Marshall Plan it provides. Though critically analysed, the content on the Marshall Plan in this book is limited in perspective, as it focuses heavily on Soviet reaction and rejection to the Plan, thereby limiting the amount of information applicable to this essay; it is a clear contradiction to the scope of this assessment. However, this lack of multiple perspectives is compensated with Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 by Ambrose and Brinkley, and other supplementary sources.
In World War II the Allied Forces had a "Europe First" campaign of invading the Atlantic countries before the Pacific. This is because Germany served as a bigger threat than Japan to the Allied Powers. In the United States, Franklin Delanor Roosevelt was the President. He kept America neutral at first, but later entered in after Pearl Harbor. George Patton was a popular U.S. Army leader who started tank warfare in America. Bernard Montgomery commanded the 8th Army which had victories in Europe including D-Day. At the near end of the war Omar Bradley toured through Germany notifying the rest of the world what had gone on there with all of the death camps during the Holocaust, which was where the murder of over 6 millioin Jewish people took place.
To start off the Cold war, Russia had lost twenty-seven million soldiers in World War II. Stalin was not going to allow the Germany to attack Russia again . To make sure of this , Stalin made East Europe his buffer zone.The United states could not allow the this to contunie to happen. The first example was the Truman Doctrine, that declared the the Untited States would support “free people”. The Doctrine was followed by the Marshall Plan which gave 12 billion dollars in aid European democracies so that communist ideas would not be so attractive. These were some of the long term , patient policies the United States did to
Stephen Ambrose speaks much on wars that America was directly or indirectly involved in. In one chapter, The Legacy of World War Two, he saw war, for the US and the Allies, in World War Two, as “not to conquer, not to enslave, not to destroy, but to liberate” (Ambrose 120) He goes on to say that “the Marshall Plan was the most generous act in human history.” (Ambrose 121) The Marshall Plan created NATO, the Berlin Air Lift and Ambrose swimming in patriotism claimed it was “the American spirit, more than American productive power, that made it so.” (Ambrose 121) He continues h...
During 1940-1970, the USSR and the USA were the world’s leading superpowers. After WW2, it was the US money that helped rebuild nearly all of Western Europe, putting nearly half a dozen countries into debt. They opened trade and helped Europe’s ravaged economy to get back onto its feet. They did so by creating the ‘Marshall Plan’ on June the 5th, 1947. The plans aim was to reconstruct Western Europe and at the same time to stop Communism spreading to them – the Americans were avid believers in the Domino Theory, and believed that communism would take over all of Europe if they did not intervene. They also created other policies such as the Truman doctrine on March the 12th, 1947 (which is a set of principles that state that the US as the worlds ‘leading country’ will help out other democratic governments worldwide) and NATO, 4th of April 1949.
2 Charles S. Maier, ed., The Cold War in Europe: Era of a divided Continent (New York: Markus Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1991) 27.
America’s entrance into World War I is seemingly peculiar in that it was perhaps the first instance in which the United States militarily intervened in any situation outside of the context of continental American politics. Therefore, a change in foreign policy is quite evident, and in fact, historical fact. Thus, when one is to analyze the circumstances surrounding America’s involvement in the “Great War”, it would be of the most importance for one to examine the reasoning behind this aforesaid shift in policy. There are mainly two factors which appear to have precipitated this shift: an increase in economic ties with European nations, and an adjustment to the manner whereby the United States determined how it may interact with foreign powers. When inspecting these elements, one should also question the extent to which they may uphold, or possibly betray, traditional American values--if at all. Essentially, an increase in the strength of, and the American value placed upon, trade with European economies, and an apparent shift in how Americans viewed themselves in context to global affairs, seem to have been the primary forces which may have initiated a change in foreign policy around the year of 1917; with both of which resulting in a potential deviation from traditional American values.
During the years between World War I and World War II, Eastern Europe looked to the West for a suc...
The WWII Proposal for the Provision of a Welfare State The proposals made during the Second World War for the provision of a Welfare State were made in order to eliminate poverty from the country. Various proposals were made that aimed to achieve this. One proposal, which was the main aim of the "Beveridge Report" was to abolish Want by providing social insurance for all: this meant providing various benefits and making people pay contributions, both depending on the class of the individual. Retirement pensions (over 60 for women, over 65 for men) and children's allowances would be provided. Employees would get benefits for unemployment and disability, and employers, traders, independent workers and people of working age without a job would get training benefit.
The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became the East nations, and the United States, centered on NATO formed the West nations, dividing the world in two. Belonging to neither the East nor the West, developing countries were called Third World nations and became a stand-in for wars between the East and West (Gaddis, The Strategies of Containment 70-78). The end of WWII and the beginning of the C... ... middle of paper ... ... a, from containment to rollback in Korea; welcoming European integration because it portended the creation of an economic unit that encouraged technological innovation; building a configuration of power in the international system, nurturing free markets while safeguarding American interests, a constant in Washington for more than 35 years; and, free political economy at home were just a few of the strategic methods used to change, influence, and shape American domestic policy (Leffler, The Specter of Communism,100-129).
The American economic policy with Europe also contributed in a vast amount. The policy had intentions to protect and encourage American
It is an attempt to solve the reparation issue of Germany after the World War I. The new German government stopped the resistance and tended to approach a new way to settle the reparations question under the Treaty of Versailles. Spielvogel noted that the Dawes Plans established by international commission “reduced reparations and stabilized Germany’ s payments on the basis of its ability to pay” (799). In order to reduce its burden and promote its recovery, this plan also provided a two hundred million dollars loan for Germany. It should be studied today because this plan allows the Germany to pay for the reparations. The loans offered by the United States starting the heavy American investment in the Europe, which brought about the flourish of Europe in the 1920s.
From 1948-1952 the US invested $13 billion toward reconstruction while simultaneously loosening trade barriers. To avoid the postwar chaos of World War I, the Marshall Plan was designed to rebuild Western Europe, open markets, and win European support for capitalist democracies. The Soviets countered with their rival Molotov Plan, a symbolic pledge of aid to Eastern Europe. Polish leader Józef Cyrankiewicz was rewarded with a five-year, $450 million dollar trade agreement from Russia for boycotting the Marshall Plan. Stalin was jealous of Eastern Europe. When Czechoslovakia received $200 million of American assistance, Stalin summoned Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk to Moscow. Masaryk later said that he “went to Moscow as the foreign minister of an independent sovereign
New economic institutions such as the World Bank, sought to spread the principles and practices associated with free market economies throughout the world by creating programs and lending money to countries, which allowed the people of that country to practice free market economic principles. The World Bank was originally created to help rebuild Europe from the vast destruction caused by World War Two. During the post WWII period the World Bank lent money to many European countries which has greatly helped them recover from their losses from WWII. For example the World Bank lent $250 million to France in 1947. That loan helped France rebuild its economy by creating jobs and infrastructure which later helped push the countries stagnant economy into the stronger free market economy of today.
Reid, T. R. The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy. New York: Penguin, 2004. Print.
The end of the Second World War brought about great change in the world. This was especially true in Europe, where some battles left areas completely devastated. With Hitler regime fallen, it was clear the leaders of not only European nations but other nations like the United States wanted to change the structure of land that was once occupied by the Nazi army. The U.S. and Western Bloc would be in a chess match over this land with the Soviet Union and the Western Bloc. This chess match is better known as the Cold War. The following paragraphs will discuss how this war where no blood was shed played out throughout Europe. These paragraphs will examine and provide examples of how the Cold War created a new a set of geopolitical, social and economic relationships throughout the continent as well as which of these factors was of most importance.