U.S. plans to internationalize the containment of the USSR in the Balkans in the first half of the 1950s

Abstract

The article examines the actions of the US diplomacy aimed at strengthening the US military and political presence in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean in the first half of the 1950s. The United States began creating mechanisms for mobilizing its allies to contain possible Soviet aggression in the event of a new local conflict on the Balkan Peninsula. This policy led to the need to develop plans for internationalization of alleged conflict. The author uses materials from the US National Archives, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the electronic archives of the Central Intelligence Agency, North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US National Security Council, as well as published sources. Special attention is paid to the position of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff on military strategy in the Eastern Mediterranean. The outbreak of the Korean War became an important milestone in American politics not only for the Far East, but also for other regions of the world. In the Balkans, the Americans were mostly afraid of the aggression of Soviet “satellites” against Greece and Yugoslavia. In response, in the early 1950s the United States formed a new security model in the Balkans, which based on a differentiated approach: Greece became a member of NATO, while Yugoslavia entered the anti-Soviet Balkan Pact affiliated with NATO. Yugoslavia became a bridge between the NATO countries – Italy and Greece. Documents held in the US National Archives show that American military leaders spoke out in favor of Yugoslavia’s membership in NATO and insisted on coordinating the military plans of Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. The author concludes that the rapprochement of Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey was situational. The improvement of the situation in the Balkans after the death of Joseph Stalin led to the collapse of the Balkan Pact. The analysis of American policy in the Balkans made it possible to contribute to the study of the means and methods used by the United States to internationalize military conflicts in various regions of the world in the mid-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.