Containment In The Cold War

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Containment was the approach of America following the end of World War II, and the beginning of the Cold War. Containment had many different variations during the entire Cold War, but its main purpose was to fight the spread of Communism throughout the world. Some believe that containment was a defensive strategy, but it can be argued that it was a way to defeat Communism period. Containment began with the Truman administration with his top Russian advisor, George Kennan. Kennan who wrote the “long telegram” on the Soviets listed a few issues with Communism and why it needed to be stopped. Kennan explained the Soviets perceived themselves to be in a state of perpetual war with capitalism; the Soviets would use controllable Marxists in the With Eisenhower a “New Look” approach was taken when focusing on containment. This approach used established military might in American nuclear arsenal. Eisenhower would use this arsenal to pose threats of use to combat some of the spread of Communism. Another item at Eisenhower’s disposal was the use of the CIA. Unlike any president before him, he utilized the CIA to conduct covert missions to cease or halt the spread of Communism. Eisenhower also believed in the “domino theory”, in which without American influence, a nation could succumb to Communism, and if they did, the nation next would, until all were Communist. This was prevalent in Southeast Asia, as there were two main communist influences in the region. Since there were these influence, Eisenhower set out and established SEATO, which is the Pacific version of NATO. Following Eisenhower, President Kennedy believed that some measure taken were too weak. Kennedy feared that small nations were throwing caution in the wind and were looking to the Soviets on how to build a nation. With this in mind, Kennedy set out to squelch this by bolstering the arms race within America, and more aid to developing nations before the Soviets could do

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