Question

How did the Truman doctrine affect the cold war?

Answer 1

Hint: During the Cold War, an American foreign policy named the Truman Doctrine was made. Its main aim was to restrict Soviet geopolitical growth. President Harry S. Truman declared that the US would provide political, military, and economic assistance to any democratic nation facing oppressive powers from the outside or within.

Complete answer:
The Truman Doctrine placed the United States as the guardian of a free world in the face of Soviet violence, intending to halt the spread of Communism. During the Cold War, this new ideology offered a legal ground for US intervention. With President Truman's Truman Plan, which expressed an overt anti-Soviet stance, historic tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated into the Cold War.

This Doctrine meant that the United States would help other countries threatened by Soviet communism. This became a pillar of American foreign policy, leading to the creation of NATO in 1949, a military coalition that is still in use today. Historians often cite Truman's speech as the starting point for the Cold War. Informally, the Truman Doctrine was broadened to become the cornerstone of American Cold War diplomacy in Europe and elsewhere. It changed American foreign policy against the Soviet Union from détente (tension reduction) to containment (as advocated by diplomat George Kennan).

Note: George Orwell, an astute opponent of totalitarianism and propaganda that both superpowers were capable of, coined the word "Cold War." He described a "cold war" as a time of "non-hostile belligerency," which was an apt definition of the situation that the US and USSR would soon find themselves in following World War 2.