The fatal noise of sirens ring out, while children in your class duck under desks for safety. This was one of the reasons the United States wanted containment in the world. During this time period of containment, the Cold War was going on with the U.S. and the Soviet Union (now Russia). This cold war was a name for the period of conflict between the Soviet Union and her communist allies and the United States and her democratic, capitalist allies. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1991 when the Soviet Union fell apart. But really, how did the United States and their allies contain communism. What exactly is containment? The definition of containment in this case is the US policy of not letting the Soviet Union expand its empire. The U.S. contained communism at The Berlin Air lift, The Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. One good example of a way the U.S. contained communism is carrying out The Berlin Air Lift. The Berlin Air Lift is when Germany divided into two sides, East and West, and one side was in need of food and supplies. So the U.S. air dropped supplies onto the starving country. (DOC B) shows a map of all the places that surround Berlin. This proves that it was in desperate need of help. In this dire situation the U.S. dropped these supplies to show that they support countries …show more content…
showed their policy of containment is at the Cuban Missile Crisis. At this event in time the U.S.S.R. had missiles in Cuba that threatened the U.S. In (DOC A) it tells the president that they need to take the U.S.S.R. with caution and distance. The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the times they had to take it with distance and precaution. (DOC D) shows a map of what happened at this dangerous event. Cuba had missiles that endangered the U.S. population. So in exchange that they took their missiles out of Cuba, the U.S. took their missiles out of Turkey. This shows the U.S. concern of a nuclear war, they obviously don’t want to destroy the whole
In the 1950s and early 1960s, communism was America’s biggest fear. Many were afraid that the communist ideologies of the Soviet Union were a threat to the thriving capitalistic democracy of America. As communism continued to spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world, it became America’s duty to prevent the political theory from growing further and eventually reaching the western hemisphere. From 1954 to 1961, the United States established several policies to contain communism, such as the Truman Doctrine, Brinkmanship, The Interstate System, and others due to fear of communism from both the government and the general public.
The Cuban Missile Crisis demonstrated the United States’ use of the policy of containment because the United States issued a quarantine of Cuba and also entered in diplomatic talks with the Soviet Union to try to halt the conflict. However the Cuban Missile Crisis also demonstrated how containment was not successful because despite how friendly the two leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States became Cuba still became a communist
Not only was communism prevented but America also saw benefits in regard to their U.S. Military and intelligence agencies which gave them more reason for success. Document 8 covers that within a year of the international conflict in Korea, America’s armed forces doubled with 3.2 million people, army divisions increased, Navy ships increased, Air Force plans grew in number, etc. It not only pointed at the military building up but also the mushrooming of the CIA. It states that personnel massively increased and foreign CIA stations rapidly grew. The Korean war strengthened diplomacy for the states while ensuring greater freedom for our country and around the world.
With each President’s idea, the countries gained the strength to defend themselves from communism with the help of the United States. We did not want countries to fall to communism, due to the Domino Theory, the idea that if one central country fell, many others around it would
The hysteria that there were communists in the United States was common, and Mccarthy would use this elicit fear to ruin people’s careers and gain power. Much of the panic also came from the fact there were Russian spies in the United States and they were able to steal American secrets. In March of 1954 (Document A) Eisenhower gave a speech addressing the large amount of “hysteria” in the country, addressing the fears of Americans from internal sources; more specifically he is addressing “Unwise Investigators” such as Mccarthy, and the fear people have of being accused of being a communist, and the fears of communism spreading to America, considering the communist spies that were already present in the United States. George Kennan's policy was to stop the spread of communism by using the method of “containment”, this policy would carry on through the next decade. Americans were desperate to stop the spread of communism at all costs, and would take military action and engage in two wars (Korean & Vietnam), in order to halt the spread.
Williams argues that the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in 1945 was to defeat the Japanese quickly so the Soviets would not enter the war and try to expand their sphere of influence in Asia, but also to scare the Soviets and check their expansion in Eastern Europe and Asia. The atomic bomb was used as a containment policy because the U.S. wanted to show the Soviets that they were ready to use nuclear weapons if the Soviets tried to expand their sphere of influence and bring communism to Asian and Eastern Europeans, which
Stopping the spread of Communism through military and nonmilitary ways. The Soviets had expansive tendencies. The Soviets wanted to isolate West Berlin from the West and take them over. From Document A, In these circumstances it is clear that the main element of any United States policy
Our idea was “containment” which was we wanted to stop the spread of communism in its tracks before it could get a foothold in other parts of the world, that is why the U.S. got involved with the South Koreans.
And a way to stop the appeal of communism in depraved countries was by restoring international economies and promoting capitalism. One of the major events that occurred was the building of the Berlin Wall, which cut of West Berlin from communication and supplies. The Berlin blockade was an effort by the Soviet Union to cause the Allied powers to abandon their control of West Berlin after World War II. However, this was combated by the Berlin Airlifts, which flew needed supplies to the people in West Berlin. This idea of preventing communism was also displayed in document I.
Especially since Eisenhower believed in massive retaliation, which was funding the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and less funding to the army. Eisenhower’s policy had backlash from both conservatives and liberals. As stated in Document E, “...whether a policy accepting the first blow may be the best one.” People believed that massive retaliation was not the best way to avoid nuclear war. Document E serves the purpose of showing the faults of massive retaliations and how in the grand scheme it isn’t a sufficient way to keep away from a nuclear war.
The Soviet Union began demanding adjustments to its relations and control over Turkey, as well as Iran. Though Stalin backed down at the threat of U.S. Naval forces, his actions led to the containment policy. This policy is used to prevent the spread of communism. Later, in 1947, the United States took over the responsibility of providing economic aid to Turkey and Greece and announced that they would be helping the nations affected by Communism. The Marshall Plan was put into effect later that year and it offered reconstruction aid to much of Europe.
They both used the policy of containment. Eisenhower created a theory called the “Domino Theory.” The “Domino Theory” was a theory that stated that if one country became communist then their neighboring country would become communist too (Ayers 950). It was made for awareness to prevent communism. The strongest Military efforts included brinkmanship and massive retaliation.
The idea of containment was that countries tend to jump over to being communist when they are facing an economical crisis, so to prevent the communist idea from spreading we needed to help countries economies. Congress approved Truman’s suggested amount of $17 billion over the course of four years to help out Great Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. This strategy for preventing communism did work very well, and was very successful in what the U.S. was trying to do. Even though all of that money and planning did what was needed and did prevent this communist
As did Truman, Eisenhower’s containment policy also kept communism from spreading to the United States and other foreign countries. Without Eisenhower's actions of pursuing Truman’s policy of containment the United States could have been taken by communism, but he started an end to the spread of communism for his era of presidency. If he wouldn’t have taken action the United States could be suffering from
For such of new country, it sure has some history. The United States has been involved in some rocky “regime changes” throughout its history. In Overthrow, author Stephen Kinzer outlines those in which American influence was the deciding factor. The book is set up into three sections, titled for how the operations were grouped together: The Imperial Era, Covert Action, and Invasions. With each government interference, Kinzer seems to only point out where they went wrong.