Containing Communist Expansion: US Strategies in the Cold War 1946-1963

Abstract

Discuss the Cold War at home and abroad from 1946 to 1963. In what ways did the United States seek to contain Communist expansion?  How successful were we? Cold war was a period of economic and political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union between 1945 through 1963 to 1991. The main conflict involved competition of the communist system of Soviet Union and its allies and the democratic Capitalism of the United States and its allies leading to intense political, economic rivalry, diplomatic and military posturing between the two nations (McNeese, T. (2010). It is a period that hosted dramatic increases in military spending, high tensions, and hyperbolic rhetoric by leaders of both sides as well as millions of casualties in severe wars throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa. Unfortunately both sides viewed their political and economic system as superior to other leading them to interpret every global event as part and parcel of an ongoing confrontation that would help determine which system would win as a prevailing ideology throughout the world. However, since these conflicts came in the form of cold war, there was no direct engagement of the militaries between the two nations but in one way of the other United States managed to successfully contain the spread of communism. Through the Truman Doctrine, The United States was able to provide military, political and economic aid to democratic countries that were under the threat of communist influences (Anistratenko, 2022). Such a strategy enhanced attraction of these countries to capitalist system thus preventing expansion of communism. United States managed to airlift supplies to Berlin and send troops to Korea. It also enhanced quarantine/blockade to keep out the communist Soviet Union. Although U.S. was not completely successful in preventing expansion of communism in some...