American Interventions Since World War Ii Essay

Since 1940, the get together States has a long history of foreign interventions, long since leaving so-and-so its former isolationism. Its motives have included the urge to fight fascist aggression, the passion to contain communisms spread (and protect American stinting interests), and preserving American access to plentiful Middle eastern fossil oil. Before celestial latitude 1941, a good deal of the American public favored isolation from world affairs, particularly in the wake of conception war I, to many a unpointed conflict.However, others looked warily at the spread of fascism and militarism in Europe and east Asia. chairman Franklin Roosevelt believed by 1938 that the conflict would eventually draw in the United States, and he wanted to assist the United Kingdom in its war against Germany (which it fought with close to no help beyond American aid programs resembling Lend-Lease). Roosevelt, certified that many Americans were wary of another futile war, framed the c onflict in moral terms, presenting Hitlers fascism and Japans militarism as evils that needed obliteration by the forces of democracy.He cautiously began preparing the realm for war by expanding the arm forces and defense economy, aiding the British, and imposing embargoes on oil and metal sales to Japan, vainly hoping that Japans military-run government would desist from its aggressive expansion passim eastern Asia. The Cold fight began almost immediately after World War II, giving the United States no real opportunity to refund to isolationism.By mid-1945, the Soviet army had already occupied much of eastern and central Europe, claiming its right to buffer nations and using a dying Roosevelts agreement at Yalta to justify their domination of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and much of the Balkan area. Very quickly, the Soviet Union began expanding its assisting commie rebels in various nations, and the United States saw a threat not only to its own dominance but in any ca se to capitalist economies abroad (many tied to American economic interests).Aware that much of Europe was devastated and impoverished by the war (and thus vulnerable to Soviet influence), the Truman administration actively intervened in European affairs with aid packages like the Marshall Plan, the Truman doctrine (which led to American intervention in Greece and Turkey, where communist insurgents actively sought control and the British were unable to cope), and the creation of NATO as a military response to the Soviets.The Cold War also set the United States to intervene further in Asia, after the communist coup detat in China in 1949 and the outbreak of hostilities amongst North and confederation Korea in 1950 (which turned into a sort of proxy war between the United States and China). After a cease-fire halted the Korean conflict in 1953 (indeed, it has not officially stop and American troops remain thither in large numbers), the United States followed the policy of contain ment, initially outlined in 1946 by George Kennan NSC-68 document.Accepting the existence of both the Soviet Union and China, American policy aimed to prevent communist expansion into other nations, particularly the hotly-independent triplet World nations that had been European colonies before 1945. This often involved behind-the-scenes reward of various regimes (sometimes democratic, often authoritarian and repressive)Though Lyndon Johnson framed the Vietnam War in Cold War terms, using the domino theory to argue that gamy communism in southeast Asia was pivotally important, the conflicts roots determine in the mid-1940s, when the Vietnamese declared independence from France and fought an eight-year war for liberation, ending with Frances defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954.The United States, which began providing aid to France as archaean as 1950, increasingly viewed Vietnams fight to reunify under Ho Chi Minh through the lens of Cold War thinking, and Johnson approached the war as a battle against communist expansion, rather than as a irregular war for national liberation and unity. In the Middle East, American interventions principally concerned both the regions rich oil supplies and the nation of Israel, whose independence the United States recognized within minutes of its declaration in 1948.American support for Israel was motivated in part by Trumans sympathy for the Jews, given their horrific experiences under Nazism) complicated relations with Arab states and incurred undestroyable Arab mistrust of the United States. In addition, the United States (being the worlds largest oil consumer) was eager to protect the regions vast oil handle from the Soviets and drove the United States to support dictators such as the Shah of Iran and later Iraqs Saddam Hussein with negative consequences in both cases.When communism ended as an international threat, American leadership increasingly viewed Arab extremism as the new threat to its hegemony. The Gulf War of 1990-1991 grew from Iraqs invasion of Kuwait, which upset the regions political status quo and jeopardized the Wests access to Kuwaiti oil. The current conflict in Iraq is a continuation of this, as soundly as an effort to assert American authority in a region which has long regarded the United States with suspicion and disdain.Economic and geopolitical motives were the political boss factors behind American interventions abroad after 1940. The United States entered World War II to fight fascist aggression and expansion, while the Cold War was a struggle against both growing communist influence and the resulting threats to ball-shaped capitalism and Vietnam transformed from efforts to help a colonial power to a Cold War fight.Finally, American activity in the Middle East has been motivated by a desire to keep the region a stable and dependable source of oil, as well as a desire to combat Muslim extremists aiming to undermine American domination.REFERENCESBoyer, Paul S. et al. The unchangeable Vision. Third edition. Boston Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Goldfield, David et al. The American Journey. Third edition. Upper Saddle River NJ Prentice Hall, 2005.