Question

The early years of the Cold War marked a critical turning point in American Foreign relations because it?

Answer 1

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/24491/john-lewis-gaddis/reconsiderations-the-cold-war-was-the-truman-doctrine-a-real-tur

Maybe this will help you out! (:

Answer 2

There are many possible answers to this leading question. For example, one answer would be to say it led to a permanent involvement of the United States on the world stage, which had never happened before. Generally, before, the US had pursued an isolationist "live and let live" foreign policy, with very little interest in conflicts, and a willingness to simply trade with everyone. The Great Neutral was the ideal, except that the US promised to resent any European intrusion in Central America (the Monroe Doctrine), for pretty practical reasons of national security -- no one wanted a powerful European client state on the borders of the US.

There was probably some thought that following the Second World War, the US would again retreat from the world stage into its own interests, as it had following the First. But the Cold War stopped all that, and began a period of very strong US involvement overseas, both militarily and culturally, which has not stopped. The US intervened in Greece, of course Germany and Japan, Korea and China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and on and on. Even today, after the Cold War has ended, the US is messing around in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and now we hear arguments about Syria. None of this would have been thinkable before the Second World War, when it would not have seriously occured to the general American public to get involved in someone else's problem.