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date: 08 February 2025

Truman Doctrine. 

Source:
The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern World
Author(s):
Gary Helm DardenGary Helm Darden

The Truman Doctrine represents the declaration of President Harry S. Truman in 1947 to contain the spread of Soviet Communism, thus formalizing the United States' commitment to waging the Cold War. The impetus for the policy came when Great Britain, facing a postwar financial and imperial crisis, informed the United States in February that it would discontinue aid to anti-Communist forces in Greece and Turkey. This prompted a critical U.S. foreign policy debate in which the Truman administration resolved that the United States should fill that vacuum or accept probable Soviet expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean. Although initially established to provide these two countries with $400 million in U.S. economic and military aid, the policy provided a much larger template for a global extension of U.S. power to deter Soviet expansion throughout the Cold War, and thus marked a clear departure from its more isolationist prewar policies.... ...

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