United States Containment Policy During 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 necessary. The second idea behind the containment policy was that there existed 5 major industrial centers within the world, namely the United States, Great Britain, West Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Since four of these five were capitalist nations, and allies, containment meant "confining the Soviet Union to that single one (Hook and Spanier, 42)". Simply, the basic policy of the United States during the Cold War was not to defeat the Soviet Union through force, but to simply prevent it from expanding.

The main force that changed the American policy of containment was the fear of Soviet expansion into developing countries. During the 1950s and 1960s, many countries in Africa and Southeast Asia that were previously controlled by European powers were liberated, and became independent nations. The Soviets saw this as "proof that the international capitalist order was disintegrating (Hook and Spanier, 82)." The Soviets were then given an opportunity to attempt to spread their political, economic, and social values into these regions. The diplomatic efforts put forth by the Soviet regime were somewhat successful, at least partially due to the animosity these nations were feeling to the capitalist powers that had until so recently controlled them.

The success of the Soviet attempt to spread communism and socialism to developing countries would be the direct opposite of the goals of containment, by giving the Soviet Union allies outside of Europe, and a large amount of natural resources to use. Thus, the United States was forced to respond by modifying foreign policy to include financial and economic assistance to developing countries. While the effect of this assistance did not in fact increase the living conditions of the general populace in the majority of these nations, its did, with a few notable exceptions, prevent them from becoming communist or socialist nations.

Despite efforts to contrary by the United States, some developing nations did adopt communism, most notably North Vietnam and Cuba. In Cuba, America attempted to overthrow the communist government via a covert invasion, and when this failed, the USSR, sensing weakness and indecisiveness in the American leadership, attempted to place nuclear warheads on Cuba. The United States responded by blockading Cuba, and the USSR relented. Both the covert invasion and the later blockade were major diversions from the initial policy of non-military containment of the expansion of socialism. The creation of a communist state so physically close to the United States was of major concern to the leaders of the United States, and foreign policy was altered accordingly.

One of the other nations that became communist, and the most notable, was North Vietnam. After the French government, supported financially by the United States, ended its war in Vietnam, the nation was divided into two, and led by interim governments - a communist regime in the north, and a noncommunist one in

...