Containment

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Containment has been the primary strategy of the United States in its conduct of foreign policy in the postwar era.

The term defines the objective: to “contain” communism within the spheres of influence which it controlled effectively in 1947. It was then that American leaders first fully perceived the extent to which communist expansionism threatened the security and freedom of the noncommunist world.

In the opinion of some observers, the concept of containment has guided the foreign policies of the Soviet Union and the Western powers, although the ground rules have differed for each side. For the West, containment of communism signified a status quo policy which did not envisage any attempt to regain any territory absorbed by the Sino-Soviet bloc. The communist powers, however, while insisting on the inviolability of their domain behind the iron and bamboo curtains, considered the lands within the West's defense perimeter fair game for aggression—if not by direct military means, then by indirect methods hardly less effective (Strausz-Hupé et al. 1959; Stillman & Pfaff 1961).

Evolution. The United States policy of containment evolved during that unhappy period, from about 1945 to 1947, when the United States was forced by ineluctable realities to reassess Soviet intentions. Repeated shocks were necessary in order to impress the hard fact of Soviet hostility upon the American consciousness, so long conditioned during the war years to regard the U.S.S.R. as a gallant ally. As the implications of Soviet dominion over eastern Europe began to dawn on Western leaders, their resistance to further Soviet encroachment began to stiffen. When Soviet troops failed to evacuate Iran by the established deadline in March 1946, American and British pressure was brought to bear, forcing their withdrawal. That same month, Winston Churchill helped to arouse Americans to the growing communist threat with his famous “iron curtain” speech at Fulton, Missouri.

The communist-inspired civil war which erupted in Greece that fall hastened the formation in the United States of a wide consensus on policies designed to halt communist aggression. In March 1947, Britain asked the United States government to take over the support she had been providing to Greece and Turkey. President Truman and his advisors responded with a proposal to Congress to provide substantial aid to these two countries. The policy outlined by the president, which became known as the Truman Doctrine, promised American aid to any country whose freedom and independence were threatened by external aggression. The Truman Doctrine proved to be the inspiration for the American concept of containment. From it issued the Marshall Plan, NATO, Point Four, and other programs and alliances designed to build up the economic, political, and military strength of the “free world.”

The containment policy, with its rationale and its objectives, was articulated most clearly by George F. Kennan (1947), a career diplomat, who organized and served as the first head of the Policy Planning Staff of the Department of State, created in 1947. He specified that “the main element of any U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” (1951, p. 119). The communist threat, Kennan maintained, “can be contained by the adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points, corresponding to the shifts and maneuvers of Soviet policy …” (1951, p. 120).

Kennan developed his thesis, in somewhat general terms, from an analysis of Soviet ideology and society. It was his contention that if the West could successfully block the communists' “unceasing constant pressure” toward world dominion for a period of time—perhaps 10 to 15 years—the resulting frustration would so heighten the internal strains of Soviet society that the Kremlin regime would collapse or, at the least, seek a realistic accommodation with the West.

The policy of containment has been executed by a variety of means. One of the chief architects of the policy, Dean G. Acheson, who served as undersecretary of state during the crucial spring of 1947 and later succeeded George C. Marshall as secretary of state, saw the problem as primarily one of converting situations of weakness in the free world into “situations of strength.” This meant, first of all, the building of military strength but, in addition, “the buttressing of all the other forms of power— economic, political, social, and moral—and the utmost resolution and unity among the free nations of the world” (Acheson 1950, p. 965). Embracing a policy of containment, the United States clearly repudiated such alternative policies as isolationism, appeasement, and preventive war.

The principal tools which the United States has employed to carry out its policy have been economic assistance and a system of military alliances. Perhaps the most important objective of the United States' alliance diplomacy has been to secure overseas bases along the perimeter of Sino–Soviet bloc territory in return for military assistance and mutual security pacts.

Critique. The critics of the containment policy have found it wanting on several accounts. Perhaps the least serious of the charges leveled against it has been the argument that American resources are not equal to the task of policing the entire frontier of the communist empire. Defenders of containment counter with the assertion that in time our European allies, whom we assisted in regaining economic strength, will help shoulder a larger portion of the burden.

More telling has been the contention that the supporters of containment as the most rational and only possible policy of the United States toward the Soviet Union have failed to take into account the transformation in Soviet society which has occurred since Kennan published his celebrated analysis in 1947. Soviet economy and technology have outpaced rates of growth predicted 15 years ago. Furthermore, the Soviet Union has thus far overcome the difficulty of the transfer of supreme power, a hurdle which many Western Kremlinologists thought Soviet leadership could not surmount.

A corollary to the criticism that containment has been too inflexible is the charge that the policy has been, from the beginning, wholly unsuitable for application in Asia. Those who hold this view are willing to concede that the strategy of containment has been reasonably successful in Europe, where the crisis was of long standing, where the remedies were fairly obvious, and where a shared cultural heritage facilitated political and military cooperation. As these critics see it, the mistake was in attempting to extend the European formula to other areas of the world where similar conditions did not exist.

The sharpest critics of containment have been those who felt that the policy was too passive, too static, too apt to concede victory to the enemy by default. This school of thought contends that the free world, simply by maintaining the status quo, leaves the communist camp free to consolidate its gains. Thus, the hope for a break-up or a mellowing of the Soviet regime in some far-distant future is considered both erroneous and dangerous. According to this view, by accepting the communist ground rules, which forbid waging the cold war on any territory already under Sino–Soviet control, the West commits a folly that is all the more unpardonable because it is, besides being dangerous, exceedingly costly.

Despite such adverse criticisms, nearly all Americans conversant with international affairs are willing to concede that containment has achieved some success in imposing on the Soviet Union, in Kennan's words, “a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection.” In fact, even the severest critics of the policy of containment agree that it provides the basis upon which must rest any future foreign policy adopted by the United States. To be sure, the United States must “contain” before it can assume the initiative. Generally, those who believe that containment can be no more than a stopgap argue that it should be superseded by a more positive policy. Such a policy should place greater emphasis on political realities, especially the need for the political reformation of the western alliance; persist in the maintenance of military defense; and, in addition, concentrate greater efforts on the non-military aspects of the conflict; i.e., means must be found to carry the contest beyond the bounds of the free world and to exploit the divergencies and vulnerabilities of the communist camp itself.

History has yet to render a final verdict on the success or failure of containment. Given the existing political and intellectual climate of the United States in 1946–1947, it seems reasonable to assert that containment was probably the one and only effective foreign policy that did not exceed the physical and psychological capabilities of the United States at that time. How the American people can put to best use the experience derived from containment in order to develop a foreign policy adequate for the world of today—this is a matter which still demands their and their leaders' most thoughtful attention.

Robert Strausz-hupÉ and David Edwin Lebby

[See alsoDisengagement; Foreign policy; Strategy; and the guide underInternationalRelations.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Acheson, Dean G. 1950 The Strategy of Freedom. U.S. Department of State, Bulletin 23:962–967. ? An address to the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States. Also available as U.S. Department of State Publication No. 4034.

Aron, Raymond 1962 Reflections on American Diplomacy. Daedalus 91:717–732.

Aron, Raymond 1965 Has Russia Lost Her Grip on Europe? (Russian and United States Influences Compared.) Réaltiés (English edition) [1965] October: 17–19.

Donnelly, Desmond 1965 Struggle for the World: The Cold War, 1917–1965. New York: St. Martins.

Graebner, Norman A. 1962 Cold War Diplomacy: American Foreign Policy, 1945–1960. Princeton, N.J.: Van Nostrand.

Kennan, George F. 1947 The Sources of Soviet Conduct. Foreign Affairs 25:566–582. ? Published under the pseudonym X.

Kennan, George F. 1951 American Diplomacy, 1900–1950. Univ. of Chicago Press.

Spanier, John W. (1960) 1965 American Foreign Policy Since World War II. 2d rev. ed. New York: Praeger.

Stillman, Edmund O.; and Pfaff, William 1961 The New Politics: America and the End of the Postwar World. New York: Coward.

Strausz-hupÉ, Robert et al. 1959 Protracted Conflict. New York: Harper. ? A paperback edition was published in 1963.