Effects Of Ww2 On American Democracy

The United States along with its allies during World War II defeated enemies that threaten the survival of democracy in Europe and most importantly the democracy of the United States and the American way of life. In the wake of victory, the United States was enjoying economic stability and traditional family values, until a new threat loomed on the horizon. The threat was known as communism and was once a former ally in the war against fascism. Communism threaten to replace democracy around the world and destroy the very social fabric of the United States and so the Cold War begun. The fear of communism was in every aspect of American Society and even found its way into the Federal Government, who pushed for patriotic citizens to resist communist

The United States prepared for the future with confidence and a sense of justness that the American way of life and democracy was the correct path. Even with the defeat of the axis forces of World War II, a new threat emerged that challenged the very ideals of democracy and the American way of life that the United States and the American people fought and died for. The new threats name was “Communism” and evidence of its intrusion into the United States was evident in the spring of 1945. Authorities within the United States and even Canada discovered evidence of Soviet espionage and proof that Americans were passing sensitive materials to communist nations to be used against the United States. In response to the newly found communist threat within its borders, President Truman issued an executive order 9835 giving life to a Federal Loyalty-Security

The idea was to contain communism to its current boundaries and not to allow surrounding nations to fall under its influence. The fear was that if one nation fell to the aggression of communism, the neighboring nation would be subjected to the same pressure and fall under communist rule and so on until communism dominated the world over. This idea of foreign nations falling to the spread of communism in such a manor, resembled a domino falling into and knocking over another domino that would then fall into another domino in a continuous chain until there were no more dominos/countries to knock over. This theory was named the “Domino Theory” and would become the bases for the United States foreign policy for the duration of the Cold War. The first test of the United States in implementing its foreign policy when preventing communist expansion came in 1946, when President Truman protested against a former ally, Soviet Union, form placing troops within Iran. President Truman also provided support to Turkey to prevent soviet access to the Turkish Straits. This had limited impact on communist expansion and with the a successful test of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union by September 1949, the need to contain the enemy was now more important than