Title: Was the US’s containment policy effective during the Cold War? | by August Frederico | Medium
Headings: Was the US’s containment policy effective during the Cold War?
Was the US’s containment policy effective during the Cold War?
Content: Throughout this series of auxiliary military conflicts with the USSR, the US foreign policy was shown to be undoubtedly effective as it contained the spread of communism to very few nations over the course of the Cold War. While military action delivered repeated blows against the Soviet’s worldwide spread of communism, economic policies dictated by the US containment policy tied up, starved, and eventually collapsed the USSR and their international communist influence. Directly preceding World War II, Europe found itself in a catastrophic economic hole. America — worried that Europe’s vulnerable economic climate would cause these nations to turn to communism — implemented the Marshall Plan. Officially called the European Recovery Program (ERP), it sought to provide financial support to struggling European nations to prevent their succrumberment to communism. Over the course of the Cold War, the US foreign policy directed over $140 Billion (adjusted for inflation) via the ERP to prop up weakened states (Fogarty, 2/20/18, N/A) .. It was one of the most brilliant plans to come in support of US foreign policy, as it provided Europe money that stabilized its economy and thus prevented the spread of communism, while the very money the US provided circulated back to the US as Europeans bought goods from them. While the Marshall plan was undeniably effective, acting as a strong preventative measure against European communism while continuing to increase America’s economic power in Europe, it was not a direct action against the USSR and allies. To directly target opposing nations, the US placed numerous and harsh embargos against the soviets and their allies through the National Security Decision Directive. This directive sought to choke the USSR of what little economic power they had while driving wedges between them and their allies by placing similar but lighter embargos on any nation tied to the Soviet Union. This included a number of Eastern European nations, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and China (Donnelly, 1965, page.