Question

What is one success and one failure of the U.S. Foreign policy in Asia from 1945-1955????

Answer 1

American containment was backed up by earlier efforts to consolidate the Western democratic powers against the spread of Red. The United Nations was the first materialization of this in 1945. The second, and perhaps most dramatic, was the call to arms by Britain's moral saint, Winston Churchill. He gave a speech in 1946 encouraging active endeavors to curb communism, and avoid a third world war. He spoke of an "Iron Curtain," the dangerous separation of East and West Europe where no one could see in or out. This mentality contributed greatly to the paranoia of the Cold War. The United States also promoted and joined NATO; a big step toward deterring communist expansion came in 1949. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as it stood for, was comprised of the major W. European powers and the United States. The treaty provided for collective defense of the member nations, and considered an attack against one an attack against all. This also provided a presidential loophole for military intervention by America in any foreign struggle without Congress declaring war (i.e. Korea, Vietnam, Bay of Pigs). Unfortunately, this backfired, and instead of deterring communist expansion, forced a paranoid Soviet Union to flex its' muscles. In 1955, to counter the NATO buildup, the USSR formed an equally conglomerate alliance with Eastern European nations. The Warsaw Pact, as it was known, shrouded virtually all of Eastern Europe in the Iron Curtain. Poland, Bulgaria, E. Germany, Romania, and many others were now no more than puppet nations held by the Grand Puppeteer, Russia. In one fell swoop the Soviet Union gained almost as much land as Napoleon or Hitler; but without a war. America's idea of a united effort at the containment of Communism had boomeranged into a united expansion of communism.