Truman Doctrine

The Truman Doctrine speech outlines President Harry Truman's approach to foreign policy in the early years of the Cold War. The speech was delivered to a country still recovering from the recent Second World War and finding itself increasingly at odds with the USSR. Truman’s foreign policy advice was intended to present a new modus operandi for the US within this environment. The speech had a dual audience: Directly, Truman was proposing to the joint chambers of Congress that they needed to provide $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey; indirectly, he aimed to convince the American people of the need to assume a new role in geopolitics, and why tensions would grow with Russia, which had been a wartime ally just two years before.

To achieve this purpose Truman employs Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle (logos, ethos, and pathos), repetition, antithesis, and notably plain prose to create an accessible yet emotively appealing description of the dangers facing democratic nations and why America must help them. The speech follows a simple structure; Truman first covers the crises facing Greece and Turkey before pivoting to a broader justification of the Truman Doctrine. Using this structure, Truman seeks to ensure his speech is persuasive; he emphasizes the humanitarian cost of the spread of communism, especially in the case study of Greece, before demonstrating that the only solution is US aid. By establishing Greece and Turkey as examples, Truman strengthens his appeal for a prescriptive approach to foreign relations, proving the need for US action in actual, instead of theoretical, situations. Ultimately, this allows Truman to show himself as providing a complete picture of the geopolitical trends that motivate action, even as he controls the narrative. Truman creates the paradigm in which facts are presented, thus leading the audience to the only possible moral conclusion.

Accordingly, a theme that persists throughout this speech is The Necessity of US Global Leadership. In the time Truman was delivering the speech, isolationist sentiments were prevalent among elements of Congress and the American people. Before the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, US involvement in the Second World War had been a highly controversial issue, with many maintaining the view that European conflicts should not concern the US. The Truman Doctrine’s allowance for essentially unlimited entanglement in foreign affairs therefore needed to be justified. Truman argues his case by emphasizing the responsibility of the US to the “free peoples” of the world and the cost of failing to rise to the occasion. His stance is that the ability to choose one’s way of life is a foundation of international peace. The destruction incurred in winning the Second World War has endangered many nations, whose hard-won autonomy was now threatened by totalitarianism. As the US was still able to provide help, the other nations “look to us [the US] for support in maintaining their freedoms” (51). Truman makes the case that providing this support is not only a moral duty but an act of self-preservation: Instability in Europe and the Middle East would necessarily threaten American security as well.

A related theme is The Role of Economic Aid in Foreign Policy. In the speech, Truman reveals not only his belief in American world leadership but also his vision of how this leadership should manifest. The Truman policy is built around the economic power of the US; Truman identifies economic relief as the most effective way to help Greece and Turkey resist totalitarian and communist advances. Moreover, he argues that infusions of cash into European nations are essential to “economic stability and orderly political process” (36). This was important in that it “softened” the commitments his doctrine would entail. Military intervention is not specifically discussed, though implied as a possibility, which means those that still clung to isolationist beliefs could be somewhat mollified. Truman also justifies the economic aid he asks for by comparing it to what was spent in the Second World War, noting that the $400 million he requests to save Greece and Turkey is merely 0.01% of what was spent during the previous conflict. Truman holds that the “investment” (48) in world peace could be safeguarded by sums comparatively not very onerous upon the American people.

Truman’s reasoning for supporting economic aid is also thematically revealing. Prosperity, his speech implies, is a source of stability and thus the best antidote to the causes of communism: “misery and want” which “spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife” (50). Truman emphasizes that the failure of economic and political systems leads to extremist movements—by which he means the insurgent communism threatening the stability of Greece. This is by no means a novel claim, but it is crucial in understanding his doctrine. In providing economic aid, Truman seeks to support the existing systems, thereby decreasing the perceived need for radical change such as the overthrow of democracy or the shifting of allegiance to the Soviet Union.

Throughout the speech, Truman concerns himself with The Spread of Communism as a Threat to Democracy. A central feature of government thought on communism in America during the Cold War was the Domino Theory. This view held that once communism took hold in any one nation, it could rapidly be adopted among neighboring states. Truman mentions this in reference to Greece, whose fall to communism he believes would depress the spirits of the “Free peoples” of Europe and may lead to Turkish communism, which would in turn endanger the Middle East. He presents nations as most susceptible to communism once they have no hope. Just as impoverishment depresses this hope, so does the spread of communism among neighboring states.

Truman’s speech contains the connected themes of The Spread of Communism as a Threat to Democracy, The Role of Economic Aid in Foreign Policy, and The Necessity of US Global Leadership. These combined are intended to lead the audience to the view that America must begin to spread its wealth among the democratic nations of the world, strengthening them against a communism which, if left unchecked, according to Truman, will spread and eventually endanger the US.