12/27/2022 0 Comments Domino theory![]() ![]() Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II, split from the south of the 38th parallel where U.S. The takeover by Communists of the world’s most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss, prompting the popular question at the time, “Who lost China?” The United States subsequently ended diplomatic relations with the newly-founded People’s Republic of China in response to the communist takeover in 1949. Two Chinas were formed – mainland ‘Communist China’ (People’s Republic of China) and ‘Nationalist China’ Taiwan (Republic of China). The installation of the new government was established after the People’s Liberation Army defeated the Nationalist Republican Government of China in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949). In 1949, a Communist-backed government, led by Mao Zedong, was instated in China (officially becoming the People’s Republic of China). ![]() Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe (along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that became known as the “X Article”, which first articulated the policy of containment, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a “buffer zone” around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to the Greek government during its Civil War and to Turkey following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. įollowing the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry S. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow. Graham Evan and Jeffrey Newnham, The Dictionary of World Politics (Hemel Hempstead, 1990) Historyĭuring 1945, the Soviet Union brought most of the countries of eastern Europe and Central Europe into its influence as part of the post-World War II new settlement, prompting Winston Churchill to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri that:įrom Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an “Iron Curtain” has descended across the Continent. Nations over which the USA and the Soviet Union competed for influence were like a line of dominoes, and if one fell to communism, a process would be started which would ‘lose’ all of them. American theory, during the Cold War, of defence against Soviet influence. ![]()
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