NSC-68 and the Soviet Threat in 1950
The United States as World Policeman Since 1950
NSC-68 (National Security Council Report 68) was prepared for the Truman administration in April 1950. The Korean War would begin two months later and Senator Joseph McCarthy had already begun his notorious “witch hunt” of alleged Communist activity within agencies of the federal government earlier in the year. It was also a mid-term election year and the administration needed to demonstrate a strong resolve in confronting the apparent expansionist aims of Soviet Russia throughout the world. NSC-68 defined the need for “containment” and gave Truman the ammunition to rebuild American military strength.
Defining the Aims of the Soviet Union
As NSC-68 detailed, World War Two “fundamentally altered” the “international distribution of power.” Colonial empires no longer existed and traditional coalitions of strong nations had been eclipsed by the two newly emergent superpowers. Only a year before the report, the Soviet Union had detonated its own atomic bomb, setting into motion an arms race that began in January 1950 when President Truman authorized the building of a hydrogen bomb.
NSC-68 defined the characteristics and ideologies of the two superpowers as polar extremes. While the U.S. represented the “free world,” a democracy with global security interests aimed at preserving the republic, the Soviet Union’s ideology rested on “fanatic faith” that sought to “impose…absolute authority over the rest of the world.” This basic assumption would come to define the Cold War.
Although NSC-68 was a reaction to contemporary events such as the division of Europe by an “iron curtain” and Soviet attempts to interfere in Greece and Turkey, the architects of the document may have failed to take into account that the Soviet Union was acting out of varying motivations. Russian desires in Turkey, notably control of the Dardanelles, were historic. Stalin’s occupation of what became known as “Eastern Europe” was based on traditional fears of encirclement as well as reparations for the devastation suffered during World War II.
Mutual Fears Based on Ideological Assumptions
Soviet Russia had never trusted the west. After World War One, the Bolsheviks accused the allies of intervention on behalf of the Whites, whose goal in the Russian Civil War was the overthrow of Lenin. In the 1930s, Stalin watched the western democracies appease Adolf Hitler. Stalin finally concluded a separate agreement with Hitler in August 1939. Following the end of World War Two, President Truman terminated Lend Lease assistance to the USSR, evoking a bitter response from the Kremlin; the aid was restored temporarily.
NSC-68 portrayed the potential of Soviet victory vividly: “The issues that face us are momentous, involving the fulfillment or destruction not only of this Republic but of civilization itself.” The U.S. surmised that Soviet foreign policy was a singular “one-size-fits-all” program whose overall goal was the destruction of the free world.
The Inevitability of Global Communism
Although most Kremlin leaders were realists, the ideologues among them, like M.A. Suslov, believed in the ultimate triumph of the Soviet system. It was this “system” that was addressed by NSC-68. The Soviet “system” could be found anywhere in the world, particularly in those nations arising out of colonialism. Hence, containment offered the most promising response. These views would shortly shape U.S. response to the outbreak of the Korean War.
NSC-68 called upon the U.S. to act as a force of “positive participation” within the world community. This meant rebuilding the military and expanding the costs of defense. It also meant educating the American people on the threat of Communist global aims and the dire implications for the free world. As Senator Arthur Vandenberg advised Truman, “scare the hell out of them.” [the American public]
NSC-68 set the tone for the next decades of response to Soviet actions throughout the world, although U.S. responses were modified by different presidents. As a consequence, the U.S. abandoned isolationism forever and began the long process of policing the world.
Sources:
- Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin, 1997)
- Carl Oglesby and Richard Shaull, Containment and Change (Macmillan Company, 1967)
- National Security Council Paper No. 68, 1950 in Major Problems in American Foreign Policy, Volume II: Since 1914, Thomas G. Paterson, Ed. (D.C. Heath & Company, 1984)
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