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New alliances and shifts in policy - Coggle Diagram
New alliances and shifts in policy
Eisenhower Dulles and brinkmanship
Eisenhowers election campaign in 1952 had promised to make US foreign much more proactive than Truman’s had been; his new look policy was based on miliatry strength and on rolling back communism
Eisenhower assumed power at a time of huge concern over the soviet threat, and the need for strong measures to defend agaisnt it
Dulles saw the US’s nuclear arsenal as a diplomatic tool to force agreements from communist opponents up to the very point when a nuclear war might break out - this being referred to as brinkmanship
Dulles was convinced that the ability to reach the verge of war, without actually engaging in war, was essential in effective foreign policy an diplomacy agaisnt a potential aggressor
The new look policy
Eisenhowers new look policy was carried through by his secretly of state, john foster Dulles, who believed communist expansion could only be deterred by the credible threat of force
Key aspects of the new look policy
Brinkmanship
Dulles was willing to employ brinkmanship- being ready to go to the brink of war in confronting any soviet threat
convert operations
dulles backed the use of convert operations ( undercover activities by the CIA and its agents) to encourage oppostion in the satellite states of the soviet bloc
Massive retaliation
This meant beign prepared to respond to attack by conventional forces with nuclear weapons
Eisenhower and Dulles were worried about the huge cost required to defend the west using conventional forces; massive retaliation would be a faster and less costly response
strengthening global alliances
Eisenhower and Dulles wanted to involve pro US allies in Western Europe told hold back the USSR, and in Asia to keep communist china in check
NFG, NATO and the Warsaw pact
His aim was to integrate west germany closely with france and Western Europe, and to convince the US that the FRG could be a reliable ally
Being on the right side in the Cold War enabled the FRG to develop its own identity
In the following years, the FRG quickly took shape as a self governing state led by chancellor Konrad Adenauer
Germany was integrated into the Economies of Western Europe. In 1955 at the Messina conference, germany joined five other states to form the EEC ( european economic community)
The federal republic of Germany ( FRG) had been created in 1949
The FRG was accepted into NATO in may 1955. This legitimized its re-armament
These western alliances were matched by economic and miliatry alliances in the soviet bloc:
The Economic intergration of the soviet bloc was organized through cominform, set up in 1947
only days after the FRG’s admittance to NATO, the USSR announced the Warsaw pact, a defensive miliatry alliance of soviet bloc countries with a joint command led by the USSR
SEATO alliance
However, many of the SEATO members were not southeast Asian countries such as the US , UK france and Australia. Conversely a number of the countries it was designed to protect were not members ( including south Vietnam Laos and Cambodia)
SEATO reflected the overall approach of the US to containing communism in Asia
It was a defensive alliance designed to protect newly independent south East Asian states from falling under communist control
US policy became focused on a defensive perimeter strategy, maintaining the stability of anti communist allies
SEATO was created by Dulles in September 1954 in response to the strengthening sino-soviet alliance
The domino theory and the US attitude to french inodhcina
Indochina was a colony of the french empire. At first the US had supported indo Chinese independence from france
This changed when the forces of the self proclaimed democratic republic of Vietnam ( DRV), under the communist Ho Chi Minh launched an increasingly successful war of independence agaisnt France winning control over much of northern indochina
This theory made the Eisenhower administration very concerned about Frances weakening grip of indochina ( a key element in the Geneva conference of 1954)
The US was alarmed about the rise of the DRV, especially after the communists gained power in mainland china and gave support to the french
It reflected the belief that if any one state in asia or Europe fell to communism more would fall one after the other as a result ( like dominos)
The US contributed more than france to the cost of the war, but was unwilling to commit troops, meaning that the US sought a diplomatic solution to the conflict
It was the first set out by president Eisenhower in an April 1954 speech about indo china
this led to Peace negotiations and an international conferences at Geneva, involving the major powers and representatives from both north and south indo China
The so called domino theory infeluced US policy through most of the 1950s and 1960s
The situation became urgent after french forces suffered a humiliating defeat in the battle of died bein phu
Summary
The policy relied on nuclear weapons as a cost effective deterrent and as a useful diplomatic tool
The polciy showed a continued commitment to containment, intended to prevent the spread of communism through building futher alliances
Eisenhower was committed to ending the Cold War through peaceful means, and developed the new look policy to do this
This seemed necessary as by the 1955, the communist world looked set to expand at the expense of the west