Abstract
1947 was a crucial year in the period preceding the creation of the North Atlantic alliance. It was a year which saw the formulation of the Truman Doctrine (which was to become the first large-scale programme of US military aid to free peoples resisting aggression), the launch of the Marshall Plan, the creation of Cominform and the collapse of the Council of Foreign Ministers in London. The British withdrawal from Greece in 1947 led to the first major move by the United States away from its traditional policy of isolationism, when it took upon itself the responsibility for the Eastern Mediterranean through the Truman Doctrine. This new direction in American foreign policy was reinforced by the advent of the Marshall Plan, which saw a further external commitment on the part of the United States, this time to the reconstruction of the Western European economy. All these events served to mark the transition from a multipolar to a bipolar world system.
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Notes
J. Melissen and B. Zeeman, ‘Britain and Western Europe 1945–51: Opportunities Lost?’, International Affairs, 63 (1986–7) no.1, pp.81–95.
Ibid, p.7.
These competing views of the world situation are identified and explored in R. N. Rosecrance, Defense of the Realm: British Strategy in the Nuclear Epoch (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).
A more detailed consideration of the legislative history of the Military Assistance Programme can be found in W. A. Brown and R. Opie, American Foreign Assistance (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1953), Part 5, Chapter XVI. For detailed discussion of the origins of the programme
see C. J. Pach, Arming the Free World: the Origins of the US Military Assistance Program, 1945–50 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).
See E. Barker, The British between the Superpowers, 1945–50 (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1983).
See L. Epstein, ‘British Foreign Policy’, in R. Macridis (ed.), Foreign Policy in World Politics (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967).
R. M. Bissell Jr., ‘Foreign Aid: What Sort? How Much? How Long?’, Foreign Affairs, 31 (1952) no.1, pp. 15–38.
D. A. Evans, ‘New Directions Reconsidered’ in J. Wilhelm and G. Fernstein (eds.), US Foreign Assistance: Investment or Folly? (New York: Praeger, 1984).
J. and G. Kolko, Limits of Power: the World and US Foreign Policy, 1945–51 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972).
R. A. Pollard, Economic Security and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945–50 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), p.161.
Ibid.
Ibid, p.136.
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Document 1769/1, 29 April 1947, reproduced in T. H. Etzold and J. L. Gaddis, Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–50 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978).
Ibid, p.72.
A. Cyr, British Foreign Policy in the Atlantic Area (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1979).
A. P. Dobson, The Politics of the Anglo-American Economic Special Relationship 1940–87 (Brighton: Wheatsheaf Books, 1988).
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© 1995 Helen Leigh-Phippard
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Leigh-Phippard, H. (1995). Interdependence and Collective Security in the North Atlantic Area. In: Congress and US Military Aid to Britain. Southampton Studies in International Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23919-1_3
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