In foreign policy, presidents tend to take one of two approaches to engagement with other countries. Generally, a foreign policy decision is either a multilateral decision, secured by the agreement of multiple allies before being implemented, or a unilateral decision, made by the country in question without regard for garnering support from allies. Read this article to learn about foreign policy topics that dominated the start of George W. Bush’s second term in office. Pay particular attention to the sections on the war in Iraq. Then write 2-3 paragraphs to address the following topics. Determine whether President Bush wanted to implement a more unilateral or multilateral approach to the war. Drawing on what you have learned in this lesson, speculate on why this was the president’s approach. Also, speculate about obstacles that stood in the way of this approach.

Of course it could have been avoided. a great many scholars argue it happened because of truman's use of fear to gain support. his predecessor fdr was the most popular and charismatic president ever. truman was a machine politician chosen as the least offensive choice around for vp. had henry wallace remained vp and then president, the cold war might not have happened. or had dewey been defeated in the primaries by robert taft, and then taft defeated truman in 48, the cold war also might not have happened. taft was somewhat isolationist, opposing nato and the korean war. wallace believed truman to be unnecessarily provocative in his dealings with the soviets.of course for strong anti communists, they claim the soviets would see any sign of weakness and try to take over the world. but this is a conspiracy theory not backed by evidence. most communist movements were local and not controlled by moscow. stalin had just lost over 20 million people and was exhausted and paranoid. his number one fear was a rearmed germany allied with the us, and truman made his nightmare real with the marshall plan. truman's blunders are at least half responsible for the cold war and neither wallace nor taft would have made them.on top of that, stalin was dying and in poor health. his successor khrushchev was a reformer who ended the forced labor camps, set many political prisoners free, criticized stalin, and declined to build a powerful soviet navy to confront the us. stalin actually proposed a neutral united germany. a paranoid american gov't turned him down, guaranteeing a continued cold war for decades more.