Edmond Klobucista
Mr. Smith
US History 2
26 April 2015
Foreign Policy of Containment Containment was a foreign policy adopted by the United States to combat the threat of Soviet influence from spreading across the world. After World War II the Soviet Union looked to spread it’s regime to Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. The communists believed that capitalism was used to oppress the workers, so by spreading the ideals of communism they would be helping. That may seem generous however, the Soviet Union did also look to have more economic power like it’s rival the United States (Liston 116). This caused many problems. Many questioned if the Soviet Union’s expansion was justified. The United States didn’t believe it to be. so a man …show more content…
Despite the name the two countries never fought against each other in a formal war. The whole cause to this was the opposing goals and ideals of each country. The United States was capitalist, while the Soviet Union was communist. The two countries could have coexisted perfectly, however the Soviet Union believed that Capitalism was evil and it was the communists duty to spread communism throughout the world riding it of free markets. The easiest way to do that would be to convert other to the communist economic ideals. Since the world was ravaged by the WWII, the Soviet Union was easily able to spread to countries that were struggling economically. However, the United States set a goal to help out countries without them falling to communism. That is why the America adopted Containment as it’s foreign policy, which was officially named by George F. Kennan in 1947. This policy was mainly to be used in Europe and was to avoid military action (Liston 116). However later on it was used in Asia, countries such as Vietnam, making containment a literal blockade of the Soviet Union’s intentions. This was achieved with the defense pacts such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO (Findling 118). These treaties got other countries involved in containment by circling areas outside of the Soviet Union through Political and …show more content…
Groups such as Vietnam Veterans Against War, VVAW were founded to protest the war. They held conferences where they talked about the atrocities they faced during the war. Sometimes soldiers had to kill entire villages, because there was no way to tell the difference between the enemy and the civilians (Pendergast, Primary 151). The VVAW also talked about how there was no point of even fighting there. They said that the people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. The people just wanted to live without the fear of being killed (Pendergast, Primary 153). In the end the whole thing was not worth it. Nixon pulled out American troops and shortly after Vietnam still fell to communism. After spending a whole lot of money and losing a bunch of men the United States achieved nothing in
Mr. Smith
US History 2
26 April 2015
Foreign Policy of Containment Containment was a foreign policy adopted by the United States to combat the threat of Soviet influence from spreading across the world. After World War II the Soviet Union looked to spread it’s regime to Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. The communists believed that capitalism was used to oppress the workers, so by spreading the ideals of communism they would be helping. That may seem generous however, the Soviet Union did also look to have more economic power like it’s rival the United States (Liston 116). This caused many problems. Many questioned if the Soviet Union’s expansion was justified. The United States didn’t believe it to be. so a man …show more content…
Despite the name the two countries never fought against each other in a formal war. The whole cause to this was the opposing goals and ideals of each country. The United States was capitalist, while the Soviet Union was communist. The two countries could have coexisted perfectly, however the Soviet Union believed that Capitalism was evil and it was the communists duty to spread communism throughout the world riding it of free markets. The easiest way to do that would be to convert other to the communist economic ideals. Since the world was ravaged by the WWII, the Soviet Union was easily able to spread to countries that were struggling economically. However, the United States set a goal to help out countries without them falling to communism. That is why the America adopted Containment as it’s foreign policy, which was officially named by George F. Kennan in 1947. This policy was mainly to be used in Europe and was to avoid military action (Liston 116). However later on it was used in Asia, countries such as Vietnam, making containment a literal blockade of the Soviet Union’s intentions. This was achieved with the defense pacts such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO (Findling 118). These treaties got other countries involved in containment by circling areas outside of the Soviet Union through Political and …show more content…
Groups such as Vietnam Veterans Against War, VVAW were founded to protest the war. They held conferences where they talked about the atrocities they faced during the war. Sometimes soldiers had to kill entire villages, because there was no way to tell the difference between the enemy and the civilians (Pendergast, Primary 151). The VVAW also talked about how there was no point of even fighting there. They said that the people didn’t even know the difference between communism and democracy. The people just wanted to live without the fear of being killed (Pendergast, Primary 153). In the end the whole thing was not worth it. Nixon pulled out American troops and shortly after Vietnam still fell to communism. After spending a whole lot of money and losing a bunch of men the United States achieved nothing in