US Policies During the Cold War

NSC-68 (1950)

After the eventful year of 1949, the Department of State ordered a complete review of American strategic and military policy, and the Department sent a paper calling for a broad-based and reinvigorated containment policy toward the Soviet Union, directly to the President. The paper later became known as NSC-68 (entitled "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security). After the outbreak of fighting on the Korean peninsula in the Korean War, NSC-68 was accepted throughout the government as the foundation of American foreign policy. The authors of NSC-68 rejected a renewal of U.S. isolationism, fearing that this would lead to the Soviet domination of Eurasia, and leave the United States marooned on the Western Hemisphere, cut off from the allies and resources it needed to fend off further Soviet encroachments. The report also ruled out a preventive strike against the Soviet Union, because its authors reckoned that such action would not destroy the Soviet military's offensive capacities, and would instead invite retaliatory strikes that would devastate Western Europe. The authors of the paper concluded that the Soviet threat would soon be greatly augmented by the addition of more weapons, including nuclear weapons, to the Soviet arsenal. They argued that the best course of action was to respond in kind with a massive build-up of the U.S. military and its weaponry. In order to fund the substantial increase in military spending this conclusion demanded, the report suggested that the Government increase taxes and reduce other expenditures.

Rio Pact (1947)

An example of containment used in Latin America, the Rio Pact provided that "an armed attack by any State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack." Signed in 1949, it created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Containment

First laid out by George F. Kennan in 1947, Containment stated that communism needed to be contained and isolated, or it would spread to neighboring countries. The US's attempt to stop the spread of communism and "Russian expansive tendencies" through economic and military measures. This included the stationing of military forces in confrontation with the Soviet Union in places such as: Greece, Iran, Germany, Turkey, Korea, and Vietnam. The policy of containment also affected Latin American policy. The United States used the CIA to support anticommunist groups in many countries. Many of the U.S.-supported regimes were undemocratic and used brutal tactics to remain in power. Economic measures included long-term U.S. economic assistance (Marshall Aid).

Marshall Plan

Marshall said that the US Policy's "purpose should be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the existence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist." The Marshall Plan (AKA the European Recovery Program) generated a resurgence of European industrialization and brought extensive investment into the region. It was also a stimulant to the U.S. economy by establishing markets for American goods. Over $12 billion was put towards the rebuilding of Western Europe by the US. The Marshall Plan was applied solely to Western Europe, preventing any measure of Soviet Bloc cooperation. During the next few years, the plan resulted in the extraordinarily rapid and durable reconstruction of a democratic Western Europe. The Marshall Plan institutionalized and legitimized the concept of U.S. foreign aid programs, which have become an integral part of U.S. foreign policy.

National Security Act (1947)

Proponents of reform wanted to coordinate foreign, defense, and domestic policy by establishing the National Security Council (NSC).

Domino Theory

The theory that if one country (particularly in Southeast Asia) fell to communism, then the surrounding countries would start to fall to communism also, like a row of dominoes. The US used methods of Containment to try and prevent this theory from coming true. US intervention led to the Vietnam War.

Truman Doctrine

With the Truman Doctrine, President Harry S. Truman established that the United States would provide political, military and economic assistance to all democratic nations under threat from external or internal authoritarian forces. The immediate cause for the doctrine to be announced was that the British Government would no longer provide military and economic assistance to the Greek Government in its civil war against the Greek Communist Party. Truman asked Congress to support the Greek Government against the Communists. He also asked Congress to provide assistance for Turkey, since that nation, too, had previously been dependent on British aid. Soon this general principle was applied to Western Europe as a whole. Truman argued that the United States could no longer stand by and allow the forcible expansion of Soviet totalitarianism into free, independent nations, because American national security now depended upon more than just the physical security of American territory.