

However, Truman faced a problem unlike any president before him…the Cold War and communism under the threat of nuclear war. Washington’s neutrality proclamation in 1796, Monroe’s protectionist approach over the western hemisphere in 1823, and Theodore Roosevelt’s Imperialism of the early 20th century were all presidential foreign policy doctrines that helped shape the United States’ interactions on the world stage. Presidential foreign policy doctrines were not new to the office of the presidency when Harry Truman assumed the position after the sudden death of Franklin D. The Marshall Plan and military alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) were designed with the hopes of gaining allies against the USSR due to the growing tensions of the Cold War. Initially envisioned as a financial aid program to Greece and Turkey in 1947, the doctrine was expanded to include economic and military assistance to Europe and Asia. The policy of containing communism was the backbone of the Truman Doctrine and worked through economic and military aid programs in the hopes of supporting nation states before communist roots could take hold.

The policy of containment was the backbone of the doctrine and worked through economic and military aid programs in the hopes of supporting nation states before communist roots could take hold. As the Cold War with the Soviet Union (USSR) escalated, the Truman Doctrine was designed to contain the spread of communism and check Soviet advances throughout the world. The Truman Doctrine was the foreign policy of the United States from 1947-1953 under President Harry S.
