Origins of the Cold War and Containment

The US and the USSR never trusted each other, even as allies. They fought together because Hitler forced them to, not because they agreed on anything else. The Soviets wanted a buffer of friendly, communist governments along their western border, after being invaded through that same route twice in thirty years. The US wanted open elections and open markets across Europe. At Yalta in February 1945 both sides papered over this gap. By 1946 the paper was gone. Stalin installed communist governments in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary between 1945 and 1947, and refused to let them hold free elections. Churchill gave the moment its name in March 1946, warning that an iron curtain had descended across the continent, dividing a Soviet-controlled east from a democratic west.

Containment gave American policy a single goal: stop communism from spreading past where it already existed. George Kennan argued in 1946 and 1947 that the Soviet system was expansionist but not suicidal, so firm resistance at every pressure point would eventually force it to moderate. Truman turned that idea into action twice in 1947. The Truman Doctrine sent money and military advisers to Greece and Turkey, both threatened by communist pressure, and promised US support to any free people resisting an armed minority or outside pressure. The Marshall Plan then sent about 13 billion dollars to sixteen Western European countries between 1948 and 1951, rebuilding factories, farms, and currencies so that poverty and despair would not push voters toward communist parties.

Both policies treated Soviet control over Eastern Europe as something to contain, not reverse. Rolling back those governments would have meant risking war with the USSR, which Truman would not do.