The election of Eisenhower in 1952 was a seeming transition in many ways. The Republican party took control after a 40 year period of a Democratic administration. The Korean War finally ended after a two year stalemate. The country certainly saw Eisenhower's administration as an opportunity to shift foreign policy in a new direction.
So what was "new" about the new look? Geographic focus? Military strategy? Focus on just one element that you feel to be new when compared to Truman, and consider whether or not the Cold War dramatically shifted in focus.
When everyone was thinking that Eisenhower would be limited by the Korean War and accomplished nothing, Eisenhower himself proved that this could be resolved. Not only he wasn't affect by the Korean War, his accomplishment of the national security policy became the "New Look" to the Americans. But this policy wasn't that positive. According to the material, the "New Look" was more like a military strategy that mostly used in diplomacy in order to benefit the US and fight against communism. It somehow made the Cold War colder by using extreme theory about revenging other countries. One of the biggest things of the " New Look" was that Eisenhower made possibility for economy to rise up and reach the same height as military. Compare to Truman, who opened the door for Cold War and started the suppress of the Soviet Union, Eisenhower made the suppress even stronger and even developed more strategies to against the Soviet Union in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe New Look policy was a far cry from Truman’s policy of containment. The New Look was put in place to stop the spread of communism, liberate countries, and the United States would use the threat of nuclear weapons to hang over the head of the Soviet Union. Originally, the New Look was supposed to, “reflect a coming change in military orientation.” Eisenhower’s New Look Policy was an aggressive urging towards the use of nuclear weapons as well as the use of force if necessary. Unlike in Truman's administration, when Eisenhower was in office, Brinkmanship was implemented. Brinkmanship was, “ a strategy of of escalating the consequences of confrontation with one's opponent until one side must back down to avoid potential catastrophic events.” This was yet another aggressive move that Truman and his administration would likely avoid.
ReplyDeleteWell Truman had a totally different idea from Eisenhower. Like Lauren said Truman's focus was on containment of communism and then Eisenhower was focused on nuclear weaponry. They both had different ideas for there military and how it can help the country. Then they both were focused on different parts of the world and they both had countries they were worried about.
ReplyDeleteAs with virtually every presidential election there comes a shift in focus. The shift of focus from the Truman Administration (more on containing the spread of Communism) to that of the Eisenhower Administration. President Eisenhower, a military man who led the invasion on Normandy along with John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State took a very firm stance against Communism. There difference was that Eisenhower shrunk the military branches and focused more on nuclear armament. The United States nuclear stockpile grew from around 1,200 to 22,229. While his profound investment into stockpiling bombs seemed dangerous, he understood the impact of the Soviets increasing their cache as well. This led to summits where they USSR and the USA could have talks to avoid MAD.Other tactics included having foreign leaders on payroll and training rebels with skills to bring about revolutions against their Communist governments.
ReplyDeleteThere was a big shift in focus after Eisenhower was elected. The shift was that weaponry became more important. This is because during the Truman years, they just wanted to stop the spread of communism. But Eisenhower, who also had a high concern of communism, believed that weapons were very important in protecting us from communism. He knew that the Soviets were doing the same thing, so in case the Cold War had an outbreak, they would be ready to fight. Both of them were strong anti-communist advocates. Just their means of dealing with the issue differed. Eisenhower mainly wanted to improve national security.
ReplyDeleteAs Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during the war, President Eisenhower had a well-earned reputation for staff work and organization. He was determined to make the Department of State a part of the NSC’s structured system of integrated policy review, and the NSC enjoyed a renaissance during his Administration. Discussion papers were prepared by the NSC’s own Planning Board—not the Department of State, and the Planning Board ironed out interdepartmental differences before a policy paper went to the NSC. The full Council, with Eisenhower almost always in attendance, debated the policy options and made decisions, which were then sent as recommendations to the President in the form of NSC actions
ReplyDeleteEisenhower put much more money on the military stuff than Truman. He focused on the army as first concern and everything he did was try to make it work better and together to be more powerful. Unlike Truman he would not only worry about defeating communism but defending the US in the Cold War as well. As the article states, the focus then shifted exclusively to the military stuff "defense of the United States was a prime concern and the US military community argued strongly that there needed to be a continental defense policy, not simply a protection of US borders."
ReplyDeleteWhen Eisenhower was elected, the focus was shifted because everything was new. The Republican Party took control, people were not used to this shift. The people saw two very different leaders with very different ideas military wise. Truman ultimately wanted to stop the spread of communism and would do everything he could to accomplish it while Eisenhower had different ideas. Eisenhower wanted to interfere dramatically. He wanted to use force if necessary, and, or, nuclear weapons. They did agree on being against communism though. The shift focused mainly on the military aspect because there was such a huge difference between Eisenhower's idea of the military and Truman's idea.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower changed everything into a completley new idea with the New Look policy. Eisenhower also focused alot more on military although he also wanted to do everything he possibly could to stop the idea of communism from spreading, and he was ready to use force to make that happen, even nuclear weapons. The major shift between Eisenhower and truman was the weapons, Eisenhower was ready to take action using as much military force as necessary as well as doing whatever was necessary to make sure communism did not spread.
ReplyDeleteI feel Eisenhower followed a more aggressive policy towards the Soviet Union and the countries it was influencing. This policy was completely opposite to the way Truman decided to combat communism. Truman was much more appeasing, and even towards the end of his term during the Korean War, he seemed to be making efforts to avoid a total war, and a nuclear war at that. What we did in Korea was essentially to push back the North Koreans and restore the border between the North and South. Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons against the Soviets and the sphere of influence. That's pretty serious, and its a dramatic change because it's exactly what the Truman administration was trying to avoid.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower was very aggressive and direct towards addressing communism. The National security policy was called "new look" and it was developed out of NSC-162/2. It reevaluated the US Military priorities, commiting the United States to a smaller army and navy while building up nuclear weapons reserves and expanding the air force which would be necessary in the event of nuclear strikes. Eisenhower viewed nuclear weapons tactically and strategically. Dulles also declared moral crusades against communism, by declaring that US will use all force necessary, including nuclear to combat aggression. As a result, Brinkmanship resulted, which increased the number of nuclear weapons the US possessed. Also, another way of combating communism was developing covert operations and CIA. CIA gained information on those considered enermies of the United States and removed the US President from decision making.
ReplyDeleteToday, the US navy is well known around the world. It's reputation is - not a single navy on the earth can compete with US navy. How did it get that strong? In my opinion, it started after the two wars, and with the new policy of Eisenhower who is strong on military. Truman, the president before him, focused a lot more on where the communism was spreading and send army there. Eisenhower, did not continue the containment policy. Instead, he expanded the national security from just on the boarder line to the whole continent. He focused more on developing nuclear weapon, suppress the socialists in Latin America as well as his neighbor Canada. Certainly, it prepared the US militarily to have such a strong influence on the globe today. As well as made the US not to fall behind from nuclear weaponary race with USSR.
ReplyDeleteAfter Eisenhower's election, the new look was introduced into U.S. as the new policy during the COld War. The New Look included many phases such as geographical focus, economy plan and economy strategy. In contrary to Truman's focus on Eurasia region combating communism, Eisenhower shifted his focus on American continent and within the U.S. He realized the domino effect of communism in Asia. Once a country falls to communism, many other will follow its step. Eisenhower feared the infiltration of communism in the American continent, especially due to the close relationships among these South and Central American countries. Meanwhile, CIA was created in 1947 in order to undermine other foreign regimes that post threats to their regions. The missions of CIA including spying on other country and assassination of foreign leaders. With the new look as his powerful tool, Eisenhower was quite successful with his own containment of Communism.
ReplyDeleteBeing the first Republican president in decades, anything Eisenhower would do would be considered new and different. Never was this statement more truthful than for the military. The military policies of Eisenhower's New Look continued to favor containment as Truman did, but in different manners and for different reasons. Since we had just left Korea, Eisenhower could concentrate on other regions. The America's were the next most questionable area because of the multitude of weak, impoverished countries that could fall to communism. the difference was that Americans had economical interests in the America's that were more important to protect than democracy. So instead of overthrowing real communist leaders, Eisenhower's administration overthrew leaders that did not please them and condemned the leaders as communists. The real communists in the Americas were combated by the newly formed CIA which could perform covert, paramilitary operations without any legal repercussions to the President. This differed from Truman who first made it legal to invade another country and then did so openly.
ReplyDeleteAt this time, Eisenhower was cutting back on the Army and Navy and expanding the Air Force which would be necessary for nuclear weapons. He also made a tenfold increase in our nuclear arsenal. Instead of fighting the communists outright like Truman did, the goal was to force the communists to back down with the threat of massive nuclear retaliation. Of course, the USSR had to match our nuclear capability. This lead to Mutually Assured Destruction. The concept of threatening the end of the world in a nuclear holocaust as a power play was beyond irresponsible, it was insane.
the cia became heavily funded and covert operations skyrocketed under Eisenhower . the cold war was at its peak and eisenhower was the general in charge. communism and its containment was the main goal of the administration and the use of nukes was not off the list of threats.
ReplyDeleteOverall, Eisenhower was just as good as a military leader as Truman was in terms of strategy according to the readings. In terms of Eisenhower in Korea, he didn't want communist to spread, and at one point Eisenhower threatens the world by saying that he had nuclear weapons (which may or may not have been true). Its clear that both Truman and Eisenhower wanted to stop the spread of communism however Eisenhower was willing to do everything in his power by using military, CIA, propaganda, and everything else he could think of. Overall, Eisenhower was willing to fight Korea but he just had to wait for the right time.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower was focused much more on the military aspect of commanding compared to Truman. Truman was more focused on containment meanwhile Eisenhower was bold and threatened other countries with nuclear weapons. He also worked alongside the CIA to further use the red scare and fear of Communism to get the people to act in foreign affairs against Guatemala. They even put propaganda there and gave guns to the people and told them to "act like Communists" in order to scare the people of the US into action.
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