The geopolitics of Containment

This thesis throws light on an oft-overlooked element of the containment policy of the United States under President Harry S. Truman (1945 – 1953): its geopolitical foundations. It contends that during this period, that of the early Cold War, American foreign policy was to an important degree informed, and therefore shaped, by geopolitical concerns and arguments. This was the case to such an extent that it is possible to speak of an internal geopolitical mode of thinking possessed by the administration, the geopolitics of containment, which existed alongside more traditional concerns of simple power politics and ideology. Based on a review of the existing literature on both the field of geopolitics as well as the early Cold War, the thesis comes to the conclusion that this geopolitical element of containment has been touched upon only briefly by previous studies. This leads to the research question at the basis of the thesis: was American foreign policy influenced by geopolitics in the early Cold War (1945 – 1953), and if so, how? The thesis argues that the answer to the first question is affirmative, by examining American policy documents of the period on the presence of geopolitical terminology. It then continues by analyzing the geopolitical elements in the rhetoric and argumentation of these same documents. The conclusion is reached that the geopolitics of containment developed alongside the wider policy of containment, coming into existence in 1946 and becoming increasingly prevalent as the years went on. In addition, the thesis argues that this process was linked to the increasing hostility toward the Soviet Union toward the end of the Truman administration. This is also tied to the fact that the geopolitics of containment was a type of analysis overwhelmingly preoccupied with policy toward the Soviet Union. The final conclusion is that geopolitical analyses were general in nature, and appeared less in policy discussions of a more technical nature. The thesis concludes that the geopolitical perspective on containment policy was an integral part of the increasingly narrow world view of the American government, and posits that studying it further may provide new outlooks on the role of the United States in the origins of the Cold War.