Protectorates and Spheres of Influence - Spheres of influence since world war ii

Following World War II, Eastern Europe became a Russian sphere. This was foreshadowed by wartime agreements on spheres that resembled the traditional type. In May 1944, Britain sought U.S. approval for a trade-off giving the Soviet Union a controlling influence in Romania and giving Britain a controlling influence in Greece. Secretary of State Cordell Hull flatly opposed the scheme, fearing that it would lead to a division of Europe into spheres of influence. As he later wrote: "I was not, and am not, a believer in the idea of balance of power or spheres of influence as a means of keeping the peace." Despite Hull's opposition, when the secretary of state went out of town for a few days in June 1944, Roosevelt gave his assent to the arrangement on a three-month trial basis, with the understanding that it was only a wartime agreement. Later, Hull felt that his apprehensions were justified when Churchill and Stalin reached an informal accord in October 1944 giving the Soviets 90 percent predominance in Romania and 75 percent predominance in Bulgaria, Britain a 90 percent predominance in Greece, and specifying an equal sharing of influence in Yugoslavia and Hungary.

Actually, it was Russian power, not wartime agreements, that made Eastern Europe a Russian sphere of influence consisting of satellite states.

Hull's concept of a world without spheres of influence—a world with a broad and effective system of general security—was not to be. The realities of power continued to operate.