Why did the US government adopt a more aggressive foreign
policy in 1947?
The US adopted a more aggressive foreign policy in response of Britain telling it that
it does not have enough money to protect Greece and Turkey from communism
and wanted it to take its place in policing Europe.
Firstly, to bring in the context, the USSR had a sphere of influence and was taking
over Eastern Europe. Truman was already worried about the expansion of the
USSR/communism so he wanted to contain it. His containment plan was called
the Truman Doctrine which marked the beginning of USA’s changed a ttitude; it
began in response of the Greece communist uprising. It was the first time the US
had stepped in to back up the opponent of communism. So, they adopted this
aggressive foreign policy here to contain the spread of communism from the East
to the W est of Europe, which meant that eventually communism would spread into
USA.
The USSR found this offensive to them and they responded by setting up the
COMINFORM to co-ordinate their satellite states and to make sure everything
that happened in those states was by Stalin’s commands.
To be able to “contain” the spread of communism, which USA believed succeeded
when people faced poverty and hardship (like how Europe was after World War 2),
they began the Marshall plan. This plan was in response to the Czechos lovakia
communist takeover. These communists were actually trying to be independent
from Moscow and Stalin’s commands but the Americans did not seem to think
that. The Americans believed that it was another takeover by Stalin and it was also
the last part of Eastern Europe that wasn’t already in communist rule.
So, in this plan they would literally give money to the Western Europe countries so
they would not be in poverty or hardship which in theory meant that communism
would not succeed. Also, this Marshall aid was good for American business as it
would develop its business in Europe and this would ensure that the depression
would not be repeated.
This was once again offensive to the USSR; they referred to the Marshall aid as the
“dollar imperialism” which meant that they were trying to build a sphere of
influence of their own in Western Europe with this Marshall Aid money. In
response to that, Stalin forbade all of its satellite states from accepting any of that
money; by not accepting the American money t hey wanted to be independent and
self -sustained rather than rely on America and join its sphere of influence (which
meant that communism would be abandoned). The USSR also set up the COMECON,
the Communist Economic Council, which would basically do the same thing as
Marshall Aid but the money would not come from America but the USSR instead
(the only problem was that they had none) .
In conclusion, the only reason why the US government adopted a more aggressive
foreign policy in 1947 was to contain communism from spreading into the West of
Europe, mainly because it would eventually lead to spreading into the US. Both
the times that USSR was offended by US’ actions was because they were
aggressive towards them, this was Truman’s iron fist policy to face Russia with.
Another small point is that due to this aggressive foreign policy American
businesses were developed in Europe and 16 European countries were helped out of
poverty with Marshall Aid money.