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AP U.S. History Diagnostic 22. Which established foreign policy was the National Security Council Report used to solidify?

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

[ musical flourish ]

00:02

And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the National Security Council,

00:07

the country's leading supplier of security guards.

00:11

And take a look at this excerpt.

00:12

[ mumbles ]

00:19

All right, and the question:

00:21

Which established foreign policy was the National Security Council Report used to solidify?

00:27

And here are your potential answers.

00:28

[ mumbles ] All right.

00:33

Okay, all right. What clues can we glean

00:35

from this National Security Council Report? Hmm?

00:38

It says that the act of force is "a last resort

00:42

for a free society." Right there.

00:44

And should be only be allowed

00:45

"when another society seeks to impose its will" on others.

00:50

Different "will."

00:51

So we need to figure out which established

00:53

foreign policy in the answers benefitted

00:56

from this new forceful rationale.

00:58

Was the National Security Council Report used

01:01

to solidify A - intervention in Vietnam?

01:04

Well, that seems like it could work, but take a look at the question again.

01:07

We're looking for an established

01:10

foreign policy, and this report came out in 1950.

01:12

We didn't "intervene"

01:14

in Vietnam with ground troops until 1965.

01:17

So that eliminates A.

01:19

Was this report used to back up B -

01:21

key points of the Monroe Doctrine?

01:24

[ chuckles ] The Monroe Doctrine was about European

01:26

intervention in North and South America

01:29

during the 1800s.

01:31

Long time ago.

01:32

The National Security Council Report was based on the Truman Doctrine,

01:36

which was a U.S. policy designed to stop

01:38

Soviet expansion during the Cold War.

01:41

Monroe you didn't. It's not B, either.

01:44

Could the National Security Council Report have been used to support C -

01:48

isolation following World War II?

01:50

Well, quite the opposite, actually.

01:52

The emphasis on intervention over diplomacy pushed the U.S.

01:56

far away from the isolationist

01:58

policies it had held after World War I.

02:01

So that forces out C, as well.

02:03

Which means that this report was used to solidify D -

02:06

Cold War containment of communism.

02:09

The policy of containment designed to prevent the spread

02:11

of Communism was a big priority at the start of the Cold War.

02:14

By detailing specific situations and cases where

02:17

force could be used, the National Security Council Report

02:20

solidified the idea of containment in a practical sense.

02:23

So D is the correct answer.

02:25

When it was first published in 1950, the NSC Report was

02:28

classified top secret,

02:30

and it wasn't made public until 1975.

02:33

Even the best-sealed containers have an expiration date.

02:36

Yeah. Remember that "best if used by" thing?

02:39

Well, maybe this wasn't that.

02:40

[ crash ]

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