ABSTRACT
By the end of 1947 the United States had become deeply engaged in European and global power politics. Government leaders had come to the conclusions that the Soviet Union was a ruthless enemy pursuing a policy of relentless expansion and only the United States could check the USSR’s drive for domination. President Truman and his advisors doubtless thought that the main Soviet threats to the rest of the world’s nations were political and economic, but such views were cold comfort to the military professionals who had to devise plans to cope with the unlikely contingency that the Cold War would suddenly become a real conflict.
