Containment During The Cold War

“Containment” referred to the strategy of the United States during the Cold War as a method to control Soviet expansion of physical territory and ideological control. It was defined as the application of counter force to pressures or actual physical military action. However, containment appears to be a strategy that ended up being at least in part, counter productive. In the way that it’s first proponent Kennan described it with the use asymmetrical response to Soviet aggression. This was later replaced in official policy by symmetric aggression which meant that interests were no longer at least publicly, hierarchical. However a characteristic that remained constant was that the counter force used by the United States was just adequate to repel Soviet forces from achieving it’s goal and not to escalate aggression in any way. While this makes sense from the lens of maintaining an
Additionally, just having the overhead threat of a Soviet aggression meant that the United States indulged in extensive military spending on a war that never took place, taking funds away from actual domestic developmental policies. It can be argued that the building up of military strength was what deterred Soviet aggressions but as can be inferred from facts, the Soviet Union could not practically aim at a world domination that the united States feared without excessively overextending their resources. It was also acknowledged by President Eisenhower that the war was not only military one but also an economic one where the threat of war meant the US maintained an expensive military preparedness that in time would bankrupt the country and provide the Soviet Union a victory without it having fired a single