Important refer to the paper that is attatched please!Draw from the information gained in your first research paper and expand your research to follow up in a new paper. Write three to four (3-4) new

EISENHOWER AND THE COLD WAR

Christy White

Course: POL300

Strayer University

Professor name: Dr. Rufus Robinson

Date: February 3, 2019

Introduction

Eisenhower cold war policy can be easily termed as that of concise caution, rooted in tactical military diplomacy and reliance on massive nuclear retaliation to defend the USA interests. Eisenhower, the first Republican president after twenty years, codified his policy as the Eisenhower Doctrine arguing that it sought to break the weak tradition of failure in containment policy. The president shared a deep understanding with his predecessor, Truman, that communism posed a monolithic challenge to world order, and the systems of freedom, liberty, and democracy. This paper analyses briefly Eisenhower cold war doctrine. It looks in depth how the president rationalized the use of nukes and spooks to prevent communist expansion and radical communist revolutions and takeovers. It also focuses on the contextual and historical background of the doctrine, its effect, and significant advantages and disadvantages.

Contextual and historical background

Fast forward after the WW2, the world became polarized with the capitalist or liberal democracies standing under the noose of a fierce threat of survival from Stalin expansionism, rooted in communism. The liberal world was led by the USA while the Communism World was influenced by the Soviet Union. After the war, Truman, Eisenhower predecessor, unveiled the Domino theory which argued there would be a spiral effect of communism in a region in case a country regime was taken over by the communist forces (Robertson, 2015). The USA foreign policy was hence geared toward containing this spread of communism, and military and financial resources were expended toward this end.

However, initial efforts of containment seemed to bear little fruits. The Korean War ended in a truce with the country being divided into two factions, one communist leaning and the other capitalist leaning, namely the North and the south respectively. At the same time, news of Communist victory in China led to a red scare at home, and the USA feared more than before that the Far East had been lost to Communism. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet regime, boasting of the most advanced military in the world, had already receded on its commitment to liberty and free elections and instituted puppet regimes in the region.

These communist victories were not isolated though, as they also threatened other vital interests of the USA. Eisenhower true and most pertinent concern was the Middle East. All his eyes were in this region, as it contained the world largest oil reserves vital for USA economy. The Middle East was facing turbulent political dynamics. There were questions of the Suez Canal and the rise of Gamal Nasser into political supremacy in the Arab league, the controversial invasion by USA allies of the Suez Canal, and the escalated expansion of the Soviet Union into the region. Nasser incessant and unpredictable behavior of playing the USA against the Soviet Union was a huge challenge (Matthiesen, 2018). Also, the USA diplomatic pressure on its allies, France, Britain and Israel after the controversial attack of Egypt meant that the USA was a lone ranger in the Middle East, at the face of rapid Soviet expansion. These threats meant that Eisenhower had to move speedily and come up with a doctrine that would ensure sustainability of USA interests in the Middle East.

The Eisenhower Doctrine

President Eisenhower doctrine was rooted in massive nuclear retaliation (Fowler, 2018). The USA already had massive atomic facilities such as the Manhattan nuclear facility. Truman, his predecessor, had also commissioned and authorized the development of another large and powerful hydrogen weapon. Eisenhower, willing to keep the federal budget down was willing to employ these weapons to create a massive nuclear shield for use in retaliation. The Eisenhower doctrine argued that the USA was more willing than ever to employ these weapons if need be to protect its national interests and radical communist takeovers. However, a closer look at Eisenhower was a president unwilling to use these weapons. He resisted calls to employ the bombs in Indochina, following Vietnamese victory over French forces. Nevertheless, the doctrine of nuclear retaliation was effective enough to keep the antagonists out of war during the cold war heights.

Effects of Eisenhower doctrine

The main effect of Eisenhower doctrine was keeping USA forces out of foreign wars. This ushered the USA into a decade of relative peace and economic stability. The Eisenhower era was characterized by rapid economic growth, as well as massive interstate infrastructure development (Scott, 2017).

Advantages and disadvantages

In the international realm, communist expansion continued, leading to further polarization of the world. The policy of retaliation was only enough to keep the USA safe alone, since several communist regimes continued to rise across the globe, including at the doorstep of the USA, that is Cuba. Besides these disadvantages, the world faced an imminent danger of nuclear destruction, as the Soviet Union quickly developed its nuclear weapons leading to mutually assured destruction. The policy of massive retaliation would hence not be sustainable for a long time. There is no doubt, however, that Eisenhower reserved and economically conscious ideology and doctrine led to the longstanding economic sustainability of the USA criteria and model. It kept the country out of war at a critical time leading to the USA becoming a hub of prosperity for decades later.

Conclusion

The state of geopolitical affairs after the WW2 was that of a polarized world pitting the USA against the Soviet Union. The USA, foreign policy doctrine, was founded on countering Soviet expansion, and the 1950s were politically hot for Eisenhower, the USA president as he struggled with securing the Middle East, a vital national interest region. Eisenhower responded to these challenges with the Eisenhower doctrine, which proposed containment based on massive nuclear retaliation. The doctrine ushered the USA into a period of relative peace, and economic prosperity. However, the policy was criticized in equal measure for its inability to contain further spread of communism in Eastern Europe and Indochina. This is because Eisenhower was ever reluctant to employ nuclear weapons to counter radical socialist regimes and Soviet expansionism.

References

Fowler, R. (2018). More Than a Doctrine: The Eisenhower Era in the Middle East. U of Nebraska Press.

Matthiesen, T. (2018). Red Arabia: Anti-colonialism, the Cold War, and the Long Sixties in the Gulf States. In The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties (pp. 94-105). Routledge.

Robertson, T. (2015). DOMINO THEORY. Postwar America: An Encyclopedia of Social, Political, Cultural, and Economic History, 400.

Scott, A. L. (2017). CITIES AND SUBURBS IN THE EISENHOWER ERA. A Companion To Dwight D. Eisenhower, 114.