Africa, the Atlantic Alliance, National Security: Focus on Liberia

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Periodical article

Title:	Africa, the Atlantic Alliance, National Security: Focus on Liberia
Author:	Harris, Katherine
Year:	2001
Periodical:	Liberian Studies Journal
Volume:	26
Issue:	1
Pages:	1-39
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Liberia United States
Subjects:	foreign policy cold war NATO defence Politics and Government international relations Inter-African Relations
Abstract:	The United-States-led Atlantic Alliance goal to defeat socialism and communism dominated the Cold War. This article focuses on the intersection of US, Atlantic Alliance-NATO, and African security relations as the Cold War peaked during the presidency of Democratic Harry S. Truman and Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson (1945-1952/1953) and the presidency of Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower, Vice President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (1952/1953-1960/1961). The article probes the Atlantic Alliance and the Liberia connection. Documents show, however, that US policymakers and their NATO allies absorbed the entire continent into their coalition and planning. Consequently, the paper looks not only at Liberia, but at the continental scope of security planning, which incorporated the independent areas (in the 1950s) of Liberia, Ethiopia, Libya, and the colonial enclaves in Africa. It draws on material from some of the US diplomatic archives and African sources available in the 1980s and 1990s. Notes, ref.