Giles Scott-Smith - The Politics of Apolitical Culture

In the context of AmericanEuropean relations, the most significant development after the Second World War was the consolidation of internationalism under the Truman presidency. Trumans predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, had sought to ensure a post-war peace through the cooperation of the major states in the forum of the United Nations (UN) and the smooth functioning of the world economy as overseen by the Bretton Woods institutions, therefore avoiding not only any long-term commitments abroad for the USA but also the lack of international stability that was present after the First World War. It did not take long after the war for this aim to be upset.

It seems relatively clear now that the Soviet position was based upon an understanding of inevitable confrontation with the capitalist West, but that this could be contained within a post-war balance of power between the two camps. Yet this was a wish that became complicated due to the unwanted high-level involvement of the nuclear-armed USA in European affairs. What is of greater relevance is the form that American internationalism took. In his State of the Union speech of January 1948 Truman spelled it out.

We have learned that the loss of freedom in any area of the world means a loss of freedom to ourselves that the loss of independence by any nation adds directly to the insecurity of the USA and all free nations. We have learned that a healthy world economy is essential to world peace that economic distress is a disease whose evil effects spread far beyond the boundaries of the afflicted nation.

Two aspects to this statement need to be emphasised. First, the assumed universalism of a particular conception of human freedom, for which the USA has become the principal defender. The Cold War was above all an ideological struggle between opposed conceptions and trajectories of social organisation and world order. Second, the importance of improving economic conditions as a means to prevent the evil effects of communism from gaining increased support. If socio-economic prosperity could be assured, the causes of communist allegiance poverty, insecurity, unstable governance would be effectively removed. These issues had been heavily endorsed the previous year through the initiation of the Truman Doctrine and the European Recovery Program (ERP) or Marshall Plan, both of which marked 1947 as an apparent watershed in post-war US foreign policy for their open commitment to European affairs. Above all, 1947 signalled the end of Roosevelts aim for a managed international political and economic landscape based on a multilateral foundation of cooperation and consent. For instance, there is a considerable difference in outlook on the world between the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration of 19436 and the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan of 1947. The anti-fascist Grand Alliance of the war years was no longer an influence on the interpretation of national policy.

Communism in particular, and totalitarianism in general, became the bte noire , the alien other, to the political, economic and cultural freedoms inherent in American life. Of course, this creation of an enemy is a fundamental aspect to the theory and practice of traditional politics. The point at which American foreign policy clearly stated the form its post-war internationalism would take can be marked as Trumans request in early 1947 for aid to Greece and Turkey. The call to arms was explicit:

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms. I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way .

This was a direct response to the decline of the ability of Great Britain to maintain its influence in world affairs. The USA had to act to fill this impending power vacuum in order to prevent possible undesirable consequences. It was this interpretation of the post-war situation as one of potential more than actual threat that determined US action.