Harry S. Truman: Truman Doctrine

Questions for Further Study

• 1. In his speech establishing the Truman Doctrine, Truman employs the rhetoric of Woodrow Wilson to justify an interventionist foreign policy, eschewing more materialistic economic motives. President George W. Bush also used Wilsonian language to explain the 2003 invasion of Iraq, insisting that the United States must use its military power to promote democracy in the Middle East. Does democratic rhetoric disguise a more economy-driven foreign policy based on ensuring access to markets and natural resources such as oil? Should American foreign policy be focused on abstract ideas or notions of national security that are more realistic, which include economic considerations?
• 2. In the Truman Doctrine, President Truman asserts that the United States cannot rely on the United Nations and must bear the burden of combating the Soviet Union. A similar unilateral approach was taken by the Bush administration with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Is American national security better served by collective security and work through international bodies such as the United Nations or by a more unilateral approach? Does unilateralism encourage a sense of American messianic mission and exceptionalism, and is this a dangerous approach to international relations in the twenty-first century?
• 3. In his criticism of the Truman Doctrine, former Vice President Henry A. Wallace argued that American military support for anti-Communist regimes could be manipulated to ensure backing for repressive regimes opposed to progressive democratic change. Did Wallace's warning come to fruition in the aid provided for authoritarian anti-Communist regimes in the Philippines, Indonesia, Iran, Nicaragua, Vietnam, and other countries? Did the Truman Doctrine ensure American victory over the totalitarian Soviet state, or did the interventionism justified by Truman's speech provoke a sense of “blowback” and anti-Americanism in the world?
• 4. The domino theory has dominated foreign policy discussions since World War II and the Munich Conference of 1938. The Munich analogy argues that Western democracies followed a policy of appeasement that allowed Adolf Hitler to expand when he could have been stopped earlier, short of a global conflict. Truman applied similar reasoning to Soviet designs toward Greece, Turkey, the Middle East, and Western Europe. The domino theory was also employed to justify the American military presence in Vietnam and in Iraq. Do the domino theory and its corollary, the Munich analogy, misapply history and use generalizations to simplify historical realities that are more complex?
• 5. Many scholars have found connections between the anti-Communist foreign policy of the Truman Doctrine and the emergence of a national security state in which dissent is limited. Has the post-9/11 environment in the United States produced a similar sense of conformity and restrictions upon civil liberties? How does a society best navigate the balance between security and freedom?