Explain Examples from Two of the Assigned Primary Sources That Demonstrate That the United States Perceived the Soviet Union as a Threat During the Immediate Postwar Years

Jefferson BINDA NGIMBI

History 135

Assessment Week 10

1. Explain examples from two of the assigned primary sources that demonstrate that the United States perceived the Soviet Union as a threat during the immediate postwar years.

The United Sates was perceived that the Soviet Union as a threat during the immediate postwar years. As there was a struggle for the world leadership, the Soviet Union wanted to impose its dominion by expanding and trying to spread its communism to other countries as it is said: “The Kremlin regards the United States as the only major threat… The implacable purpose of the slave state to eliminate the challenge of freedom has placed the two great powers at opposite poles. It is this fact which gives the present polarization of power the quality of crisis” (Johnson 218). In order to say that someone is your enemy you must find and see how he looks at you, since the Soviet Union look US as a major threat they became a potential threat also against the United States. The principal of communism is far different from capitalism. The other example that explains that the United States perceived the Soviet Union as a threat during that postwar years period is in the primary source where the president Truman addresses before the congress in 1942, he tries to tell the congress to be aware about what is going in the country, its foreign policy and its own security and in this address the president says: “The gravity of the situation which confronts the world today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.” The president goes far by saying: “The very existence of the Greek state is today threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists, who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along the northern boundaries. A Commission appointed by the United Nations Security Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece and alleged border violations along the frontier between Greece on the one hand and Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia on the other.” This primary source is chosen because I want to emphasize that as the United states was trying to expand its influence the Soviet Union also was financing rebellions in some country to reverse the power so that they can still have control of countries where the United States wants to go and spread its policy for that reason Russia was perceived as a major threat. This source is http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp.

1. Explain an example from one of the assigned primary sources that demonstrates that United States policy could be perceived as threatening to the Soviet Union.

After the World War II, the United States had to take some measures that will prevent them from being surprised by the enemy as the Japan did; the United States understood that the only thing that saved them from being invaded inside the country was the oceans. But with the advancement of the technology and the development of atomic bomb, everything could be possible to attack the United States in its land, for that reason the United States was trying to change its foreign policy. The policy was to extend the military bases far away from the United States and to have control of oceans. United States was present in china, Japan, Philippine… and this was a big problem for Soviet Union who was also trying to extend its influence all over the world, as they were the first enemy of capitalism, the telegram of the ambassador of Soviet Union in the United States explains well the problem that raised this conflict. In this primary source http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110808, the ambassador Nikolai Novikov states that: “Reflecting the imperialistic tendency of American monopoly capital, US foreign policy has been characterized in the postwar period by a desire for world domination*. This is the real meaning of repeated statements by President Truman and other representatives of American ruling circles that the US has a right to world leadership [rukovodstvo]. All the forces of American diplomacy, the Army, Navy, and Air Force, industry, and science have been placed at the service of this policy. With this objective in mind broad plans for expansion have been developed, to be realized both diplomatically and through the creation of a system of naval and air bases far from the US, an arms race, and the creation of newer and newer weapons.”