Soviet-American Foreign Policy

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The president conducts foreign policy, which can be influenced by congress. The president plays an essential role in foreign policy by proclaiming friendships with new governments. The president makes decisions on relations made with other nations, which most often affecting citizens of the United States. In the 1920s and 1930s, isolationism was a common belief. This was the belief in noninvolvement in affairs with other countries. Post WWII, internationalism became a widespread belief. This was the belief that the U.S. should interfere in affairs with other countries to protect political and economic security. The first lead for internationalism was in 1945, when America formed the United Nations.
During WWII, the Soviet Union and the United
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break Soviet-American relations because they obviously have completely different beliefs. The opposing anti-democratic beliefs could have caused even worse outcomes if they did not break the relations. A great action was the creation of the Marshall Plan, which was designed to strengthen European economies devastated by WWII. This allowed Western Europe to become stable while adopting democratic beliefs. The Soviets responded by strengthening control over Eastern Europe. This is a perfect example of how different the U.S. and Soviet ideologies are. The Soviets believe in ultimate and total control by higher authorities, which is the opposite of the U.S. democratic principles. Containment of the Soviet Union was a goal of American foreign policy. They started to work towards their goal by creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949. This organization was a mutual defense treaty. This means that if any of the 12 nations are attacked, all of the other nations join to help them. I think the creation of this organization was a smart move by the U.S. because it provided assurance that they have backup in case there is an attack against …show more content…
In 1973, the Nixon administration “reached a cease-fire agreement and began to withdraw the American military.” (Understanding American Politics, P 508). South Korea continued the war on their own, and eventually lost to communist North Korea in 1975. Yes, if the U.S. did continue to help South Korea, they may have dominated and won against communism. But an important factor must be considered, the citizens were suffering because of the foreign policy. This is a perfect example of what I was discussing earlier on foreign policy affecting the citizens. An approach was taken to ease tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, known as détente. This was important because it established arms limitations negotiations. During this time, the Nixon Doctrine was created which stated that America is no longer responsible for providing military personnel to protect allies. I’m not so sure how wise this was because now America has no backup plan or guarantee that their allies will help them after pulling out of what they originally promised. In 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed which banned nuclear weapons and provided invasive onsite inspection procedures. In my opinion, this was the most important treaty. Nuclear weapons are one of the deadliest weapons that could be used. In 1989, the governments of all Soviet

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