![]() economic, geopolitical, or military interests. ![]() leaders came to label as “communist threats” virtually any development that challenged perceived U.S. ![]() The Cold War, as such, went well beyond the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. Confused, indeed befuddled, over the emerging conflict with the Soviet Union and embattled on the home front, he found comfort in the certainty of a black-and-white assessment of Soviet intentions and a hard-line foreign policy consisting of tough talk and no concessions.” He assumed that American ways of doing things were the correct way and that the peace should be based on American principles…. Where FDR had been comfortable with the ambiguities of diplomacy, Truman saw a complex world in black-and-white terms…. Understandably insecure in an office of huge responsibility in a time of stunning change, the new president was especially ill at ease in the unfamiliar world of foreign relations. Policymaking changed dramatically under Truman’s very different leadership style. According to the historian George Herring: military superiority could be leveraged into political gains in negotiations. Offner, Truman “likened Russian leaders to Hitler and Al Capone, and inveighed against the ‘twin blights’ of Atheism and Communism.” Truman “was less an incipient statesman than an intense nationalist, overly fearful that appeasement, lack of preparedness, and enemies at home and abroad would thwart America’s mission (‘God’s will’) to win the post-World War Two peace on its own terms.” Truman’s lack of training and experience in international diplomacy and geopolitics was exacerbated by his unshakeable belief in American righteousness and his undue confidence that U.S. The latter became a major point of contention among the Big Three as the Second World War drew to a close.Īs president, notes the historian Arnold A. global predominance, especially in Eastern Europe, a region deemed vital to Soviet security interests. Soviet leaders, on the other hand, were reluctant to accept U.S. in support of its foreign missions, notably in Greece and Iran. Financially strapped Great Britain, as it turned out, accepted a secondary great power role while cleverly enlisting the U.S. global leadership did not exclude cooperation with other nations nor with the newly formed United Nations, but it did imply that others would follow the U.S. Given their country’s overwhelming power, they now expected to refashion the world in America’s image and create the American Century. For many officials, businessmen, and publicists, victory confirmed the superiority of American values: individual liberty, representative government, free enterprise, private property, and a marketplace economy. In 1945 the United States held a uniquely preeminent position. leaders and many citizens were nonetheless confident that the time was ripe for America to take charge, indeed that it was America’s new “manifest destiny” to lead the world. sought to lead in 1945 was a cauldron of unrest, filled with destitute peoples, incipient revolts, challenges to economic elitism and racism, and conflicts between ethnic, religious, political, and national groups. Indeed, the very word “imperial” lost its grandeur and became a term of opprobrium. Over the next three decades, however, the whole European imperial system fell apart.
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