Cold War Containment Strategy

After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union had very different ideas on how to rebuild. The United States, led

The view by some historians is that The Dwight Eisenhower foreign policy was popularly known as the “New Look”. This policy aimed to maintain the American financial economy while Eisenhower was planning the Cold war and continue the containment of communism regime. Also, the “New look” policy relied heavily on nuclear weapons to stop communism. Therefore the policy was been assessed as being suppressing, rigid, and too dependent on brinkmanship (trying to achieve an outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink) and massive retaliation (also known as a massive response, this is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack). Arguably, his foreign policy stressed peace greatly, but it also threatened war (brinkmanship and massive retaliation).

The first method of preventing the spread of communism was implementing US policy. This strategy included external resistance to Soviet imperialism and competing in the international arena. As a nation, we did not want the USSR to feel superior in any area. In order to do so, the US needed to modernize its military, conventionally and nuclear, so the USSR would not underestimate our country. This also intimidated

1947: Truman Doctrine: The Truman Doctrine was one of the policies under President Truman’s “Containment Policy.” In the Doctrine, he requested $400 million to bolster forces in eastern Europe to defend against Communism. Congress agrees and passes the doctrine. Dean Acheson, who was the Secretary of State at the time, argued that the fall of a Communist country will have a “domino” effect on the neighboring countries, and they need to be properly prepared for such a situation. As result of this policy, the US became the “global

Eisenhower’s administration took many actions to strengthen anti-communist states and prevent the spread of communism. One example would be the use of former President Truman’s containment policy to prevent ware between the U.S. and the USSR. Another example would be, to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking the U.S., the Eisenhower administration began massive retaliation or the mass building of nuclear weapons. This would help the United States save money and cause our enemies to think twice before starting an attack. The USSR building nuclear bombs themselves put the U.S. at risk (Doc E), this should be taken with a grain of salt though because the potential of a war and destruction was too much of a risk for both countries to attack. This potential put both countries back at a stalemate position. Ultimately, massive retaliation acted as a protective barrier for the U.S. and American citizens, calming the fear of

With the new containment policy America was able to efficiently and most successfully fight against communism. During the Cold War, America’s basic policy was the “containment” of the Soviet Union. Containment is basically the United States policy that mainly states that the United States will attempt

“The Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” -X. The Cold War was after World War II. The United States and the Soviet Union were the world's strongest nations. They were called superpowers. They had different ideas about economics and government. The United States was capitalist and the Soviet Union was communist. Joseph Stalin wanted to expand the Soviet empire and spread communism throughout the rest of the world. The United States would not allow the Soviet Union and communism to spread, the American policy was now containment. Three times the United States demonstrated the policy of containment was the airlift in Berlin, the War in Korea, the missile blockade in Cuba.

During the years of the Cold War, the United States had to strategize a way to block the spread of communism. The Cold War deliberates tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Soviets had progressed in their communist ways and the capitalist US wanted to block their spread of communism because of the awful reaction communism had cost. Most importantly are the events that took place during the Cold War that represent containment such as the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Soviet Blockade.

During the cold war, containment was the first major policy in order to prevent the spread of communism in Europe and some parts of Asia. This began postwar, when the Soviet Union decided to extend communism to more countries. There were two blocs, one democratic, the other republican which had an impact on the Cuban Missile Crisis, Korean War, and Berlin Aircraft. These examples show the United states got involved and how containment was effective during these times.

The U.S policy of containment was the U.S’s way of stopping the spread of communism. Containment played a crucial part in the Cold War and determined the outcome of many events. For example, the Korean war, the Cuban Missile Crisis and, the incident in Berlin are all keen examples of the U.S’s containment policy. These events dramatically impacted the results of the Cold War.

During the Cold War, America's basic policy was that of "containment" of the Soviet Union. The policy of containment was based upon several principles. First, the Soviet Union wanted to spread socialism to all areas of the world. However, it was felt that the leadership of the Soviet Union felt no particular rush to accomplish their goal. "The Kremlin is under no ideological compulsion to accomplish its purposes in a hurry. Like the Church, it is dealing in ideological concepts which are of a long-term validity, and it can afford to be patient. (Hook and Spanier, 42)." In other words, the Soviet leadership believed that, since their ideas were the correct ones, they would eventually prevail, and thus, no direct confrontation would be

Truman and Eisenhower fought this problem with a policy of containment, While Kennedy issued a new policy called flexible response which lets Kennedy react to different situations appropriately. What the Cold War period was, was a time in U.S. history where the United States was in a political war against communism. Their main threat was the Soviet Union (Ayers 814). One of the strategies that the three presidents used was the policy of containment That was when the president had to keep communism contained in an area using small scale battles (Truman). They also went by a theory.

In the article, “The Eisenhower Doctrine, 1957”, it states, “Under the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another state.” This line portrays the purpose of the Eisenhower Doctrine. It explains how this doctrine allowed other countries, if at risk or put in danger by another area, would be allowed to asked for American assistance, whether it be economy or military assistance. In addition, it had “singled out the Soviet threat”, as mentioned in the same article. In other words, this policy was created in response to groups such as the Soviet Union and their goal of expanding communistic methods, also known as the Soviet Threat. The Eisenhower Doctrine was influenced through events such as the Suez Crisis of 1956. In the Suez Crisis of 1956, a larger tension had broken between Egypt and British and French leaders after Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, had forced British troops to leave and give the Suez Canal into Nassar’s command. Due to this, Eisenhower, who was against the spread of communism, had allowed for U.S. military troops to be sent over so that communism wouldn’t be used, which relates back to the Eisenhower Doctrine and its purpose. Later on, the Eisenhower Doctrine was used and applied to the Lebanon Crisis 1958. This crisis also relates back to communism and the Soviet Union/Threat. The Lebanon Crisis of 1958 was a Lebanese political crisis caused by political and religious tensions between Lebanon and Egypt, and had included U.S. military intervention. The citizens of Lebanon and other leaders, such as Nassar, had questioned their President, Chamille Chamoun, for continuing to have ties with the West, leading to high amounts of tensions between Chamoun and his citizens. Due to the numerous amounts of conflicts arising and the risk of being

1. Truman’s Policy of Containment was that the U.S. would work to stop the spread of communism by providing political, economic, and military assistance to all democratic nations under the threat of communism or any external authoritarian forces. The political aspect of this policy was the alliances made during the Cold War. NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was a defensive alliance among the U.S. and other European countries against the Soviet Union. This alliance still exists today. The Warsaw Pact was a defensive alliance that included the Soviet Union and its satellite governments in Eastern Europe. These alliances assured that if one country was attacked, then the others must react by coming to the defense.

In 1957, the U.S. defends Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, from the influence of Communism due to the Eisenhower Doctrine. (A doctrine announced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower promising economic or military aid to any Middle Eastern country needing help from foreign assistance, in resisting communist aggression.) The fear of nuclear attacks caused twenty four seven nuclear alerts from The Strategic Air Command. The S.U. Challenges The U.S. to a missile firing battle, because they think they have an advantage over the US's