Americans perceived themselves as being a secular version of God Almighty. With the A-bomb in their arsenal, they felt reassured, omnipotent, invincible. It was this exaggerated self-confidence and the consequent underestimation of the Soviet rival that led to some of the most influential strategies of our time.

   Many shared the belief of Winston Churchill: „Die Westmächte dürften weit eher ein dauer haftes Abkommen ohne Blutvergießen erreichen, solange sie über die Atomenergie verfügen und bevor die russischen Kommunisten es ebenfalls tun.“ [312]  (transl.: The Western Powers will probably much easier come to a lasting agreement without bloodshed, as long as they dispose of the nuclear energy and the Russian communists do not. -B.Wahler)  James Forrestal, secretary of the navy and from 1947 on the first American secretary of defense, saw it pretty much the same
way. He was convinced that America’s vast industrial potential together with the power and worldwide reach of its navy and the super-weapon A-bomb allowed the U.S. to take certain risks or to implement a new order that would otherwise provoke a crisis, a war.[313]

   George Frost Kennan was greatly influenced by Forrestal; as a chargé des affairs he was a in central position at the United States’ Embassy in Moscow. He knew the Soviet Union from nearly twelve years of his life and spoke its language fluently, but he had come to hate Bolshevism and its institutions. On February 22, 1946 he was asked to give an assessment of the Soviet Union. He sent back a 8,000 words ‘Long Telegram’.

            „At bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinc-
            tive Russian sense of insecurity. (...) Impervious to logic of reason , and [Soviet
            power] is highly sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw
            -and usually does- when strong resistance is encountered at any point.“[314]

   The reason for Stalin’s uncooperative behavior as depicted in the ‘Long Telegram’ is the basic need to present the West as evil in order to justify his reign over the Russians. Soviet internal problems would thus be to blame for the failure of the peace efforts. The advice Kennan gives as to guide the West’s foreign policy towar- ds Russia is to develop the own system, make it even more attractive, setting thus an ideal would not only appeal to other nations but would also be a sort of stand- up with the Soviet Union; and if the West sticks to firmly and jointly countering Communism everywhere it appears, the resistance will suffice to have the Soviet Union crumble virtually over night.[315]

   Despite the fact that this ‘Containment-Policy’ became one thread that runs through U.S. Cold War policy, and made its author, G.F. Kennan a foreign policy star, David Horowitz blames this new policy for fooling American politicians into inactivity with a wrong impression of what is Soviet Power. Kennan pre-supposes the inherent weakness of Soviet power, that it might just transform over night into a weak power if contained long enough. This led American decision-makers to neg- lect talks and compromise as a way of dealing with Russia. With a firm grip on the A-bomb, they would just wait until the day had come to spread Americanism. A sound policy would have considered the worst-case scenario and not produce hopes that were not justified.[316]

   Where Kennan’s Containment theories had laid the groundwork, President Tru- man would go on to produce practical measures out of the theory that had attained incredible popularity.

   In early spring 1947 the British were exhausted. They had entered Greece to re- establish a mo narchy there. Soon they found themselves fighting against Greek leftists supported by Yugosla vian leader Tito. The guerrilla warfare brought no decisions but the British more and more lacked the means to finance their war. So they turned to Washington.[317]

   In his efforts after the World War to finally gain access to the Mediterranean, Stalin had put tremendous pressure on Turkey to concede him joint control over The Straits (link between Black Sea and Mediterranean). The British had to pull out there as well because funding could no longer be provided.[318]

   President Truman would now have to address Congress to grant him the neces- sary funds.

„The foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved. (...) I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation(...). I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own ways.(...) The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive. The free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedom. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world - and we       shall surely endanger the welfare of this Nation.“

   Truman had taken Congress by its honor, its honor to be the champion of freedom in the world. He obtained the funds needed for Greece and Turkey. But moreover he had made a committment.
He had committed the nation to helping the free peoples of the world if they are threatened by outside pressure. Of course, a ‘free people’ is a quite flexible expres- sion and ‘their own ways’ certainly does not mean anything contrary to the Ameri- can way, yet the ‘Truman-Doctrine’ was the funeral prayer for the deceased ‘isolatio- nism’. Or as Waldemar Besson expresses it:

„Das war der Beginn einer neuen Lend-Lease gegen den Kommunismus. Die Truman Doktrin revidierte das Prinzip der Nicht-Intervention außerhalb der amerikanischen Hemisphäre, die einst Präsident Monroe formuliert hatte. (...) [Es] vollzog sich der New Deal der amerikanischen Außenpolitik, die nicht mehr rückgängig zu machende Abkehr vom ‘Isolationismus’!“[320]

(transl.: This was the beginning of a new Lend-Lease against Communism. The Truman-Doctrine revoked the principle of non-intervention outside the American hemisphere which had been formulated by President Monroe. The New Deal of American foreign policy was under way, an irreversible  swing away from 'isolatio- nism'. -B.Wahler)

   Although it was initially considered to be merely a policy of economic help - you do not free someone from misery or strife by invading his country - it soon also de- veloped into a justification for all kinds of interventions all around the globe, when a ‘free people’ was threatened by ‘Communist totalitarians’.

    The first real implementation of the Truman -Doctrine was the ‘Marshall Plan’ only some two months later. The United States did not want to lose the ‘free peoples’ of western Europe, neither did it want to take care of Europe for the next decade or even longer. Initiated by secretary of state George Marshall, the European Recovery Plan (ERP) would provide funding for the projects. Europeans as well as Soviet delegates travelled to Paris, to talk about the conditions that Americans had linked to granting an affirmation for the promised money. Those conditions soon drove the Soviets out of the ERP, who then demanded the same of all the states in the areas controlled by the Russian army. Politically the partition of the continent became clearly visible.

   Overall, $27 billion were provided in funds, that would be divided up among the different European countries to help them develop a stable economy, to achieve growth and to open those markets for American goods. Recipient countries disco- vered their sympathies for rich, old Uncle Sam.
Besides having European trade recovered, the Marshall-Pan tied new bonds bet- ween the western European nations and  the United States. Especially in Germany the Plan had immense success and surely left Germans grateful for the services rendered by the United States.

   The last document that influenced Cold War politics until the end, was NSC 68, the memorandum No. 68 of the National Security Council issued in 1950. Before two shocks had sent their wakes through American society. In 1949 China had turned Communist, Chiang had fled to Taiwan and Mao Tse-tung had proclaimed the People’s Republic of China. The outrage that followed in the U.S. was even inten- sified as it became known, that China officially sided with the Soviet Union.

   The two largest -and now Communist- nations joining forces seemed too much for the U.S. to take. And this feeling of insecurity grew as another terrible news came from Moscow. The Soviet Union had itself exploded an atomic-bomb. The exclusi- vity and superiority of the U.S. power were lost within a few weeks, a few days time.[321]

   NSC 68 was to give back the faith to Americans in telling policy-makers what and how they were fighting for , it provided a foreign policy manual for winning the war. Its creation had been supervised by Paul Nitze a veteran hardliner against the Soviets.

   It made some assumptions that lay the ground for the strategies the U.S. would have to pursue:
 

It would conclusively be the duty of the U.S. to foster the seeds of destruction with- in the Soviet Union.

   The concrete tactics devised to reach that objective were  a rapid, massive military build-up, especially concerning ground, infantry forces that would enable the Uni- ted States to fight a limited war without running the risk of nuclear annihilation. A vast system of alliances would have to be established and as a new super-weapon a hydrogen-bomb should be developed.[322]

   Disillusioned about the outcome of NSC 68 what they judged to be a total mis- interpretation of the facts, Kennan and other Whitehouse advisers left in protest. They acknowledged that Stalin neither disposed of the capacities for global reach nor did had the intention to conquer the world.
Anyhow, the ‘getting tough’ approach was now to become THE rule of foreign policy.[323]

   All in all, a gigantic arms-race would set in that would increase U.S. military ex- penditures fivefold. At last, the arms-race itself would solve the initial problems of two competing superpowers that the weapons could never solve. One, the Soviet Union, would at some point be exhausted from the strains of spending most of the budget for an armaments race.

   But until then, freedom from fear and freedom from danger could at no single instant be guaranteed. In only a few years time, the hopes for lasting peace had given way to fears of  lasting terror and threat.

   To secure this uncertain life at least a bit, the United States built a system of alliances that were to provide for efficient protection of collective peace.