Title: How Did the Cold War Affect U.S. Foreign Policy? | The Classroom
Headings: How Did the Cold War Affect U.S. Foreign Policy?
How Did the Cold War Affect U.S. Foreign Policy?
Origins of the Cold War
The Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and Containment
Containment and the Flexible Response
The Evil Empire
Thawing Relations

Content: The U.S. also established NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), a diplomatic and military alliance with Western European nations. NATO members pledged mutual protection against the communist threat and military cooperation to contain communism. Additionally, the Truman Doctrine promised monetary and military aid to support any "free peoples" resisting "subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures." The doctrine helped relieve conflict in Greece and Turkey (1947) and justified U.S. military intervention in Korea starting in 1951. Containment and the Flexible Response
Succeeding Truman, President Eisenhower initially adopted a tough stance against the Soviet Union and dramatically increased the U.S.'s stockpile of nuclear weapons. The U.S. likely never intended to use these weapons. Rather, they served as a deterrent to future military conflict between the two superpowers -- both sides possessed them but their use would mean total destruction. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations advocated a "flexible response" to containing communism, supporting a failed attempt by Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro, issuing a naval blockade with the threat of nuclear weapons during the Cuban Missile Crisis and deploying troops to prevent the spread of communism in South Vietnam, a decade-long struggle that caused domestic turmoil in the U.S. Containment also took place in more subtle ways. True to the adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," CIA covert operations assisted in the overthrow of socialist-leaning leaders in countries including Iran (1954) and Chile (1973), only to replace them with U.S.-friendly military governments. The Evil Empire
In the 1970s, President Nixon attempted detente, or easing of tensions with the Soviet Union.