It is 1939 at the beginning of yet another world war. The allies and axis powers were at war, and the United States was yet again in a state of isolation.
The United States remained neutral at the beginning of the war after declaring that it wasn’t their fight to get involved in. Despite this statement, the U.S. still threw its support towards Great Britain. Sending them military supplies and any resources they could spare, especially after France was invaded by the Nazis and a large amount of French and British soldiers were killed.
But what broke the United States out of its isolated shell was Germany attacking their supply ships that were on their way to Great Britain, and Pearl Harbor, an attack by the Japanese in Hawaii that left 2,403 killed and 1,000 injured. After these events, the U.S. joined the war and the allied forces won the war by 1945.
Following the war, the United States altered its foreign policy approach from isolationism to containment. With the goal to stop the spread of communism to countries not already under its influence. This method of containment led to the United States getting involved in the Korean War in 1950 and the Vietnam War in 1955.
The Cold War raged on from the end of World War Two until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The cause being the communist Soviet Union pushing its communist influences onto the countries it liberated from German control. The United States and its allies created NATO to resist the Soviets’ presence. The decades-long war finally ended with the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union, which led to the establishment of a democratic Russia.
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Following the Cold War, the United States has developed four key goals of foreign policy.
- “Protect the United States and American”
- “Advance democracy, human rights, and other global interests”
- “Promote international understanding of American values and policies”
- “Support U.S. Diplomats, government officials, and all other personnel at home and abroad who make these goals a reality”
Sources:
https://davinciworldwartwo.weebly.com/us-foreign-policies-during-wwii.html
https://www.ushistory.org/gov/11a.asp
https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War
https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/pa/ei/rls/dos/107330.htm
This is a very well presented post. I love not only the description you use World War Two, but also your use of photos as well. Often blog posts may seem a little bland, especially those writing a lot about history, however your effective use of photos really helps out with such a mundane at times subject. I also like how you didn’t actually stop at the end of the Second World War, but instead went on to talk about the subsequent start of the Cold War as well. A lot of people stop with the German surrendering, or the Japanese surrendering, but they fail to forget the lasting impacts the war had on history soon after it ended. Also nice job at the end of America’s four objectives post-war. Solid recap!