H. W. Brands claims that, " the burden of responsibility for the cold war rested on the United States, the more powerful of the two countries, and the one with less to fear from the other." (The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War, 1993) This statement stems from the idea that America had no evidential basis for a foreign policy that called for a containment of Soviet expansion. Brands is claiming that the US had less to fear because an aggressive foreign force did not surround them. However, America did have a sense of fear. A fear that America's way of life and prosperity was being challenged by a foreign power who's aim was to undermine all that America had worked for over the last 150 years. A fear that America's domestic economy would crumble without movement into foreign markets. I would ask Mr. Brands at what point is fear a justification for protecting one's own interests. A question I grant is open to debate. Now it is true that the Soviet Union, after four long years of fighting, could not sustain a costly economic push into the foreign markets of Eastern Europe without fully controlling those markets. It is true that America was far from falling under a grass roots socialist revolution. Historians understand this now with the release of Cold War Soviet documents showing that Russia was not at America's back door. However, I think that Truman said it eloquently in his defense over dropping the bomb, "Any schoolboys afterthought is worth more than all the generals' forethought." (Robert Messer, "New Evidence on Truman's Decision")
             Based on the readings, I believe the fear held by most in the Truman Administration was founded. The limited evidence they had access to did point to a Soviet expansionist threat. Their understanding of a world market economy, one that led to a severe world wide depression just fifteen years earlier, proved a need to quickly restore European economic stability. All this deals mainly with ...