Why did the United States adopt a policy of containment?

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

After World War 2 ended, the US and the Soviet Union, once allies, developed tense relations with each other. When it was decided at the Yalta Conference that Soviet Union could have Poland, the US became skeptical because the Soviet Union was a communistic country. Having them as neighbors was definitely a problem because of the Soviet’s goal of expanding communism. If both the US and the Soviet Union were to battle, the US would be facing an enemy surrounding them (the division of Berlin into four was set inside the Soviet Union) and they would most likely not win.

Almost as soon as World War II had ended, the Cold War began, and the Soviets wasted no time in spreading their communist ideals to nearby countries by forcefully establishing communist governments. Soon after, they held on tightly to their eastern block of Germany as a first defense from western political thought, even going as far as blockading Berlin from any form of help, especially from the West. The West quickly responded by airlifting supplies that included food, coal, etc. . This marked the first instance of the American policy of containment, which was the idea that the Soviet Union and Soviet communism should not be allowed to spread (Background Essay). As time went on and acts of communism began to burst out globally, the U.S. policy of containment became an effective

DBQ: Containment The US and the Soviets have constantly had disagreements and conflicts throughout the Cold War. The main conflicts were the Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Berlin Airlift. This essay is going to explain what containment is and how the US used containment against the Soviets. Containment is when someone is trying to prevent something else from spreading and US used it by preventing the communist government of the Soviet Union from spreading. The US and its allies tried anything they could to contain communism.

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.

The U.S. Cold War began shortly after WW II. The two world superpowers, the Soviet Union and the U.S., wanted to spread their own form of government. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism to the “satellite nations” under its control, while the U.S. wanted to spread democracy to the newly created zones in Europe. NATO was created by North American countries to deter the Soviet Union from attempting to invade Western Europe. In retaliation to the creation of NATO, the Soviet Union created the Warsaw Pact with its Eastern satellite nations. Both alliances were created to deter the other from trying to influence nations under their spheres of influences, and during the Cuban Missile

of the US in the early years of the Cold war. The policy was to defeat

George Kennan's containment plan is a radical shift in the U.S foreign policy when the Policy of the United States towards the Soviet Union prior, and during the World War II is considered. The containment policy marks the shift of American foreign policy towards the Soviets from alliance to deterrence. Kennan's states in the Long Telegram, "USSR still lives in antagonistic "capitalist encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence." (Citation needed) only two years after the end of World War II, a war both the U.S and the Soviet Union fought side by side for a common ambition. If the aspect of radical shift in the U.S foreign policy is seen from a post-Cold War perspective, another radical change can

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

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 The Sources of Soviet Conduct, George F. Kennan explained “Containment was the central post-war concept of the United States and its allies in dealing with the Soviet Union”. To contain communism, the United Stated strategy was to have a strong

During the Cold War from 1946 to 1990 the United States had formed a policy called the containment policy which was adopted by President Harry Truman. The containment policy was a doctrine uniting military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to turn back communism and to insure that America would hold the leading role in world affairs.

The traditional, orthodox interpretation places the responsibility of the Cold War on Stalin’s personality and on communist ideology. It claims that as long as Stalin and the authoritarian government were in power, a cold war was unavoidable. It argues that Stalin violated agreements that he had made at Yalta, imposed Soviet policy on Eastern European countries aiming at political domination and conspired to advocate communism throughout the world. As a result, United States officials were forced to respond to Soviet aggression with foreign policies such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Yet revisionists argue that there was “no proof of Stalin promoting communism outside Russia” and that Stalin’s decisions were first and foremost, pro-Soviet and not of communist intentions. Up until 1947, it is evident through Marshall Plan as well as statements and interviews made by Stalin that he was still thinking of cooperation with the United States, Britain and France. Despite post-war conflicts and instability of Soviet-American relations, the USSR’s initial embrace of the Marshall Plan at its announcement expressed

Within theories and finding, The Truman Doctrine was established and on March 12th, 1947. Truman speech pledged “American support for free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures” (Simkin, n.d.) Congress also agreed to give economic aid to the military to help fight Greece against communism as he felt that the political stability was threatened. With Greece in trouble Truman as concerned the other countries would fall into Communism and was known as the ‘domino theory’. If it was not for Truman then Greece and Turkey could no longer afford to fight the rebels. “Truman said that the Cold War was a choice between freedom and oppression; Therefore, Americans would have to abandon their decisions not to get involved in European affairs; America was OBLIGED to get involved” (Clare, n.d.). The Truman Doctrine was an American challenge not only to Soviet ambitions but also through a policy of containment.

It was in a speech made by the 33rd President of the United States of America, Harry Truman in which he announced a policy that would undoubtedly shape the way his nation would be looked at for much of the century (or at least the half of it that remained). It was in this speech that he announced his very own Doctrine, intended to "to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.”, to save the “free peoples” of Eastern Europe from the monster known as Communism, a political ideology born out of the Russian Revolution of 1917, that had spread somewhat like a plague, throughout the lands in the East, which Stalin and