Containment in the Cold War

Immediately following World War II another type of war, known as the Cold War came about. The Cold War was a period of conflict and competition between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies. The primary reason for the start of the Cold War was the fact that the US was a democracy and that the Soviets was communist. The US did all in its power to contain the spread of communism. They did this by having containment in Europe and Asia.

The Soviets were in control of Eastern Europe. This part of Europe was called the Soviet Bloc which consisted of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, Albania, Romania, and Yugoslavia. George Kennan introduced the idea of containment on communism to the US in order to prevent the it from spreading. The US did this by creating North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Truman Doctrine, and Marshall’s Plan. NATO was a group of Eastern European countries and the United States who agreed that if the Soviet Union were to attack any member of the group that the other members would all attack the Soviet Union. This became NATO vs. the USSR, which were two groups who had Nuclear weapons. The Truman Doctrine provided $400 million dollars to Greece and Turkey to prevent communist from overthrowing the government. The Marshall Plan was a plan to divide $12 billion dollars evenly between the United States’ primary economic partners in order to restore their fallen economy. John Foster Dulles didn’t believe that this was enough and thought that communism should be destroyed all together. He believed that brinkmanship and massive retaliation was enough.

Even though the United States were successful in containing communism in the Western Europe they still had other parts of the world to protect. Asia was a primary part. The US tried to intervene in the Chinese Civil War, Korean War, and Vietnam War. The Chinese Civil War was between the anti-communist and the communist. The US tried to send over $12 million dollars to the anti-communist, but by that time the communist had won. At the end of WW2, Korea divided into North and South Korea. The Soviets occupying the North while the Americans occupied the South. The North tried to invade and conquer the South which was unsuccessful and started a war. Despite back and forth battles the War ended in a stalemate. During the Vietnam War the American soldiers tried to teach South Vietnamese to fight, or Vietnamization in order for the American soldiers to leave. However, because of the Tet offensive the US was forced to withdraw permanently.

The Cold War lasted 50 years. Overall, the Cold War seemed purposeless. Atomic bombs and space travel were some useful things that came out of the war. Everything else seemed pointless. If the US and the Soviet Union actually talked to each other like adults maybe the Korean and Vietnam War could have been prevented. Millions of lives might not have been killed. If the Cold War never happened the World would be different today.