US Domestic Agency in the Early Cold War Foreign Policy, 1945-1950

Abstract

The present paper attempts to synthesize the United States policymakers’ decisions on the course of the second half of the 1940s. Personal judgements and bureaucratic agency converged to give birth to a latent but emerging confrontation with the former Soviet Union. The international system shifted to become bipolar and the two superpowers' behaviors became more antagonistic. This paper emphasizes the American perspective of the rising confrontation, and the fateful United States' decision-makers' view of the situation during that period.