What did Truman mean when he said that Korea was the "Greece of the Far East"?
1 Answer
It was threatened by communism as Greece was.
Explanation:
In the suspicion if not paranoia which existed immediately after World War 2 between the United States and the Soviet Union, both countries confronted each other by proxy.
Having said that, the wartime summits such as Potsdam, Yalta and Casablanca had effectively divided up Europe into American and Soviet spheres of influence. It was agreed that Greece would be primarily under Western influence. However this was threatened by the power of the Greek communist party.
It was this threat which led to the Truman Doctrine whereby President Truman committed the USA to supporting any democratic country threatened by dictatorship, namely communism.
Truman saw the communist threat in Korea in the same context and committed American troops to the Korean war, to defend the south from the communist threat from the north.
