The Cold War: The Long Dispatch

Historians consider 1947 a watershed year in the history of American foreign policy. Going back to independence in 1776, the United States has long had a disposition away from ‘entangling alliances’ and towards isolationist-centred foreign policy. George Washington was unequivocal in his farewell address to the nation when he warned against these alliances, and over time, this became almost gospel to American policy makers. Of course, the United States participated in international affairs - the Barbary Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, the Great War, and the Second World War saw all America as an active force in pushing its interests abroad. But these was often because self-interest required it or because it was directly provoked. However in 1947 - two years after Hiroshima this changed.

By the end of the Second World War, it was apparent to the world that America now stood alone as the only remaining free-market and democratic superpower. It was also now clear that the once powerful ally of both the U.S. and its allies, the Soviet Union, was now an opponent. This was articulated by a foreign service officer and long-time expert on the Soviet Union, Mr. George Keenan when he wrote a now famous dispatch from his post in Moscow. Keenan’s words would make him a overnight sensation in the American capital and make it very clear as to what motivated the Soviets:

Soviet leaders are driven by necessities of their own past and present position to put forward a dogma which regards the outside world as evil, hostile and menacing. Basically this is only the steady advance of uneasy Russian nationalism, a centuries old movement in which conceptions of offence and defence are inextricably confused.

Territorial gains were simply a means to relieve the long standing sense of insecurity and fear the Soviet, and before them, the Tsarists, were long susceptible to. Indeed, it was in this fertile soil that Marxism flourished because of its very vehement and uncompromising view of ideological and economic conflict. Subsequently named the ‘Long Dispatch’ this memorandum was a contemporary Rosetta Stone for the the new Soviet opponent and became a key platform for future American foreign policy. This policy would subsequently be labeled ‘containment’ and give Democratic president Harry Truman his own foreign policy doctrine.


Next up: The Cold War: Enter the National Security Council

The Cold War: A Series

Few moments in the history of human conflict have been as defining as that of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945. In one instant, the entire world experienced the shocking and indisputable fact that the age of conventional warfare was gone. It was no longer a case were nations and civilizations were simply conquered and ruled. Indeed now, it was the entirely possible that the planet itself could be destroyed in the next great human conflict. Such was life in the Atomic Age.

But just as flowers and leaves do not appear overnight after the first day of spring, things in warfare and geopolitics did not change instantly after Hiroshima either. Indeed, as defining as these nuclear attacks were, it would be a some eventful years between the Second World War and the dawn of the Cold War. The following blog articles will examine some of the key policies, events and people that laid the groundwork for the amazing ideological and political struggle that became known as the Cold War. I hope you enjoy them.

What's in a Name?

Have you ever wondered where the nickname ‘Tory’ comes from? It is actually very interesting and goes back over three hundred years. In England during the middle 1600s, the King and his Parliament were at loggerheads. King Charles I believed he should have power like a centralized European monarch. Opposed to the king were those who believed Parliament had clearly defined rights, especially when it came to taxes. Eventually, there would be war between the King and this vocal parliamentary opposition, and in 1649, after losing, Charles was tried (see below) and lost his head.

But England would be without a king for less than two decades. In 1660, Charles II, the son of his disposed father, was restored to the throne albeit with more limited powers. Those who supported a more constitutional monarchy were insulted as ‘Whigs’ after the Scot-Gaelic whiggamor, meaning cattle driver. The more royalist faction were themselves labeled ‘Tories’ after the Irish word tóir meaning bandit or outlaw. Eventually these insults were embraced and there would Tory factions in Westminster from the 1670s until they modernized as Conservatives in the late 1850s.

In eighteenth century North America, the word Tory would again become an insult. As the 13 colonies matured and became agitated about their status as English without representation, the Tory moniker re-emerged. Once war erupted supporters of independence labeled those who supported the Crown; Tories. In due course, many of these Tories would travel north as Loyalists and found English-speaking Canada.

In Canada, Tory would come to mean something similar to that of Britain. The modern origins of our party traces itself to the 1854 alliance between ‘Les Bleus’ in Canada East (Quebec) and British-model Tories in Canada West (Ontario). This party was that of a young visionary named John Alexander MacDonald and, of course, we all know how that story turned out.