Truman Doctrine
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The Truman Doctrine was part of the United States' political response to perceived aggression by the Soviet Union in Europe and the Middle East, illustrated through the communist movements in Iran, Turkey and Greece. As a result, American foreign policy towards the USSR shifted, as George F. Kennan phrased it, to that of containment. Under the Truman Doctrine, the United States was prepared to send any money, equipment, or military force to countries that were threatened by the communist government, thereby offering assistance to those countries resisting communism. In U.S. President Harry S Truman's words, it became "the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
President Truman made the proclamation in an address to the U.S. Congress on March 12, 1947 amid the crisis of the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). Truman insisted that if Greece and Turkey did not receive the aid that they needed, they would inevitably fall to communism with consequences throughout the region.
Truman signed the act into law on May 22, 1947 which granted $400 million in military and economic aid to Turkey and Greece. It should be noted however that this American aid was in many ways a replacement for British aid which the British were no longer financially in a position to give. The policy of containment and opposition to communists in Greece for example was carried out by the British before 1947 in many of the same ways it was carried out afterward by the Americans.
The doctrine also had consequences elsewhere in Europe. Governments in Western Europe with powerful communist movements such as Italy and France were given a variety of assistance and encouraged to keep communist groups out of governments. In some respects, these moves were in response to moves by the Soviet Union to purge opposition groups in Eastern Europe out of existence.
The Truman Doctrine also contributed to America's first involvements in the Vietnam War. Starting shortly after the outbreak of the Korean war, Truman attempted to aid France's bid to hold onto its Vietnamese colonies. The United States supplied French forces with equipment and military advisors in order to combat Ho Chi Minh and anti-colonial communist revolutionaries. The US propped up the French not out of a belief that they could hold on in Vietnam, but out of a hope that a government not under the control of Ho Chi Minh could come to power.
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cs:Trumanova doktrína de:Truman-Doktrin es:Doctrina Truman fa:دکترین ترومن fr:Doctrine Truman it:Dottrina Truman he:דוקטרינת טרומן hu:Truman-doktrína nl:Trumandoctrine ja:トルーマンドクトリン no:Truman-doktrinen pl:Doktryna Trumana sl:Trumanova doktrina sv:Trumandoktrinen vi:Chính sách Truman