The brilliance and precision of George Kennan's containment policy lies within the America's accomplishments during and after the Cold War. His policy of containment was guided America's foreign policy for four decades, and influenced the policymakers for his unconventional but convincing approach. His fundamental rationale was that a powerful Soviet Union would strengthen communism, and weaken democracy and capitalism, therefore, he proposed spreading the American socioeconomic and political principles to the rest of the world to overpower Soviet influence and preserve the western ideals. The Soviet Union fell in 1991. However, two decades later, his take on how to tackle threats of democracy and capitalism remains the principle strategy of…
During the Cold War, there were two main sides of people’s opinions, for communism and against communism; people were also afraid of being killed or losing their jobs from being accused of being communists. Most people in America were against communism. In document four there are pictures of people protesting with signs that say “We are innocent” and “Burn all Reds”. The people with this signs were against the ideas of communism after the Rosenberg court case where people was accused of being communists and were put to death. This document is evidence that they were on the against the communist’s side and afraid of being killed from a false accusation.…
Union. All they could muster were relatively hollow threats on an ad hoc basis. It was an approach US Secretary of Defense James Forrestal complained was ‘a patchwork job’. Having formally adopted the concept of the ‘containment’ of Soviet Communism in late November 1948, most policymakers within the Truman administration simply assumed, or perhaps hoped is a better word, that the American atomic monopoly would somehow intimidate the Soviets from breaches of the peace for fear of precipitating an all-out war.…
This was set off by the Truman Doctrine - the first formal policy of containment. As the Soviet Union continued their geopolitical expansion, the Truman Doctrine acted as the foundation for the decisions made by the U.S in the following years. As Foner notes, “it set a precedent for American assistance to anti communist regimes throughout the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union” (Foner 711). With this, Harry Truman showed that the United States was ready to use their policy of containment, to push back communist…
The United States stemmed the growth of Communist ideology through Harry S. Truman’s policy of containment based on previous ideas by George Kennan. It promoted the usage of armed forces and troops to aid countries in risk of communist influence/concepts and guided America’s foreign policy throughout most of the Cold War. The policy sought to confine such ideas solely within the existing boundaries of the Soviet Union. Many communist-threatening events during the Cold War were at a halt due to Truman’s tactic of containment as for example, the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War originally started when a group of Northern Vietnam nationalists attempted to overthrow the French leaders and unify the country under a communist government.…
In the year 1947 is what is known as the beginning of the Cold War. During World War II the countries of United States and Soviet Union combined forces to defeat the Germans. When the war was over the tension of different ideologies began once again. Joseph Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union wanted to expand communism, he believed that communism was the superior ideology. The United States being capitalist contain communism by using the Berlin blockade and airlift to their advantage, the Korean war, and The Cuban missile crises.…
The 1950’s dealt with threats from the USSR and Communism which scared many people in the United States and soon became a full-fledged paranoia. There was fear of falling behind the advances of the Communist countries, especially among the Soviet Union, creating the Red Scare. As the Cold War with the USSR escalated, Americans increased their suspicions of Communist influences. Due to this, a special committee was formed in order to investigate Communists in America known as HUAC (The House Un-American Activities Committee). In 1947, HUAC accused ten people in Hollywood of supporting communist propaganda becoming blacklisted. As time went on, more individuals were being suspected of being Communists which eventually led to the act of McCarthyism…
The time period between the years 1945 and 1975 were filled with panic and concern as the Cold War was coming commencing. In a desperate attempt to halt the spread of communism, the United States administered a containment policy to rebel against communism in the Soviet Union. During 1945, Americans had a great fear of communism and caused distress and concern to many people. Soon enough, other countries such as Europe and Asia became involved in the discontinuation of communism and fight with the United States to keep communism under control. With the containment policy put into place by the United States, communism was effectively obsolete during the Cold War from the years of 1945 to 1975.…
The United States’ alliance with the Soviet Union began to crumble throughout World War II. Fueled by ideological differences, this climate of mutual mistrust between the two nations became known as the Cold War. Conflicts over Poland, a symbol of WWII, continued to divide these two nations apart as Stalin wanted a buffer in Eastern Europe to prevent another invasion. This is best represented by the concept of the “Iron Curtain” dividing Eastern and Western Europe. As a result of being unable to remove the Soviets from areas already under their control, the US implemented the philosophy of containment, as developed by George F. Kennan, to prevent the spread of communism.…
After World War II, President Roosevelt assumed everything was neutral, however tensions rose with the Soviet Union which turned into a conflict known was the Cold War. The Soviet Union kept trying to spread their communist ideology to many countries to gain their power over the world, however with the tensions between, the United States believed they were the only country that could stop them. The American diplomat Kennan suggested to the current president, President Truman , that the containment policy should be taken into operation because the Soviet Union needs to be withheld. The containment policy was a policy that America adopted in mid-twentieth century, where they would prevent Soviet Union from gaining power and turning countries…
Most people know America for its Jazz Age and 1920s prohibition. It is also popular for its robust economy before the recession that resulted in the Wall Street crash. Yet, this is not its darkest side. The communists dominated the Southern part of America and those who could not fit found that they were facing the law in its full force. As the cold war between the Soviets and Americans intensified, the Americans became hysterical about the supposed threats posed by communists in the United States. Those who supported communist beliefs and other non-American political beliefs became suspects for all kinds of misdemeanors. This dread of communism became identified as the Red Scare. The Americans believed that it was an attempt by the Soviet…
After WWII The Soviet Union and the United States had many different political ideologies particularly communism and capitalism. Capitalism is a belief that private property should be replaced by community ownership. Communism is opposed private ownership economies of the United States and its allies. Based on Document A, a document was first telegraphed to American officials in Washington on February 22, 1946 and it happened after WWII. In Document A the United States made the idea of containment. Containment is the idea of the Soviet Union and Soviet communism should not be allowed to spread.…
The Cold War, which took place from 1949 to 1991 was a very tense time between Soviet Russia and the United States of America (Trueman, What was the Cold War). Both countries were constantly at odds and willing to attack each other with nuclear weapons due to their differences in political, economic and social beliefs.While Soviet Russia believed that communism was the best social, political and economic ideology for the world to follow the United States believed capitalism was the best ideology and that communism was the enemy to democracy. Although the Cold War was a proxy war the differences between Soviet Russia and the United States caused the countries to begin battling for world domination. At this time, the United States considered…
Since even before the end of World War II, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union began to plague their alliance. As soon as the Soviet Union threatened to force smaller nations under their communist sphere of influence, the United States adopted what was called a policy of containment. It was an effort to bring to a halt the Soviet Union’s potential for forcing other parts of Asia into communism. The first policy of this effort was the Truman Doctrine of 1947, which…
The year of 1945 was a time of relief for America and its people. That year was the end of World War II. Germany had lost and the time for rebuilding was near. However, the peace did not last long between the Soviet Union and the United States. A difference in political and economic views caused a rift in the Soviet Union and United States relationship of convenience. The Soviet Union was running on a system of government called communism. Communism's theory of a government run by the economy was the complete opposite of America's dedication to independence. This difference caused great tension between the two nations and became a Cold War. The Soviet Union believed that communism was going to overcome capitalism and that they will win the Cold War. America's retaliation to the Soviet Union's spreading of communism was containment. Containment is the attempt to stop the spread of communism. The Cold War split the world into two large groups, those who were under communist rule and those who were against it. The United States was dedicated in their fight against communism with instances like the Truman Doctrine, which vowed to support anyone who was being threatened by communist rule, and The Marshall Plan, which gave over 10 billion dollars to European countries in the effort to rebuild the damage done during World War II. By 1947, the United States and Soviet Union were constantly on their toes and pushing boundaries to see who would gain the upper hand in the Cold War.…