Why did the US commit itself to resisting the Soviet Union and Communisim...?

Question

throughout the world after WW2

Answer 1

That was just a restart of long-term policy, WW II having briefly interrupted it.
President Rockefeller--Oops! I meant Standard Oil--Oops! I meant President Wilson invaded Russia at the end of WW I, when the Bolsheviks nationalized the Russian oil fields. US foreign policy has been almost totally that of the multinational corporations and super-wealthy since the days of the "robber barons," and communism is inconvenient to the multinationals most of the time, although I do seem to recall British Petroleum calling off the CIA in Angola once when the local commies did business with them and the anti-communist rebels didn't.
I hope you were aware we had troops in Russia in 1919!? If you check your history, you'll see the cover story about assisting the Czech legion, but the real story is that of Standard Oil of New Jersey becoming a substitute for Congress.

Answer 2

The people of the US believed Communism was a legitimate threat. They'd believed it since the Red scares of the 1920s.

"If the Commies took over they'd take away my house if I had one!" So said an old WW II vet acquaintance of mine in the late 1960s, a lawn-mower salesman in the Montgomery Ward store explained it that way.

Probably Joe Stalin was a threat to Western Europe. As for the rest, including the Domino Theory, we were all dupes, I believe.

Eisenhower had made a lot of progress in de-fusing the Cold War when the snotty young Kennedy arrogance arrived in office and lit a series of new fuses. From that point forward, probably the Soviets actually were a serious threat.

They'd had the bejesus frightened out of them by the trumped up Cuban Crisis and half a dozen other brink of war situations the Kennedys loved.

I'd say, whether we were all dupes of the propaganda machine and the military industrial complex Prez Eisenhower warned us about, we did believe it at the time.

How soon we grow old, how late we get wise.

Answer 3

'resisting' is kind of putting it too negatively. The US and the Soviet Union were the two powers left standing after world war II. Germany and Japan were defeated and both (ok only western Germany) were well within the US sphere of influence. France and the UK were severely weakened by the war, and started to lose their control over their colonies, as did smaller European countries. The cold war was for a large part a conflict over who got influence in which former colonies. But they couldn't say that: both the US and the Soviet Union professed to be very much against colonialism. So pretended to fight each others principles instead of competing over how big a chunk of the Earth they could occupy.

Answer 4

It was approximately 1946 when the allies realized that Stalin had no intention of honoring his agreements from either Potsdam or Yalta. Stalin continued his communist expansion and the denial of ever receiving billions of dollars worth of lend-lease equipment. It became very evident that Stalin and the Soviet Union pushed for communist domination of the world.

Truman and the West adopted a policy of 'containment' against Soviet expansionism. The Berlin Airlift, Korean war, Vietnam War, and the entire Cold War was a result of that containment policy practiced by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, not so much Carter, and especially Reagan. The feckless President Carter was totally humiliated by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Answer 5

The United States resisted Communism so that Western Europe and the rest of the world could remain free of Communism. The US and the Allies had just obliterated Nazi Germany in 1945, and wasn't about to allow the Russians to invade all of Europe and become a threat to America like Germany had tried to do.

Towards the end of World War II, The US and the USSR were allies, both committed to defeating Germany. When the war ended in 1945, The US had liberated Western Europe (France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, West Germany, Denmark, Norway). The USSR had liberated Eastern Europe (Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria)

After the war, the Europeans in the West were afraid Russia would try to force their governments to become Communist like they did in Eastern Europe. The US and Western Europe did not want to have to fight Russia the way they did Germany. So the US continued to help its Allies in Western Europe. Eventually Eastern Europe was also liberated from Communism, the Russian economy collapsed and Russia was also forced to allow many of its "republics" to become free nations (Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc....)

You can consider the fact that the USSR, formed in 1917, during and after WW I, was the real threat, but Nazi Germany was the immediately threat to the West's independence. The USSR replaced that threat after WW II when it forced Eastern Europe to become Communist and began exporting Communism to other parts of the world. You have to wonder what the world would be like today if world wars one and two had never happened.

Answer 6

Communism, as espoused by the Soviets was completely contrary to the ideas of liberty and democracy that the US valued so much. So they felt the "Red Threat" had to be opposed in order to preserve the freedoms of the western world.

Answer 7

When Churchill coined the phase The iron curtain

Answer 8

because of the truman and marshall plan which helped fight communism in countries, such as in greece, turkey, russia east germany etc

Answer 9

to stop the domino effect when one country would fall to communism so would the next. even many german soldiers captured toward the end of ww2 wanted to help fight the russian communists

Answer 10

Capitalism needed those markets and natural resources to keep growing. It was strickly a money thing. Forget any talk about freedom.