The Internet Encyclopedia of International Relations
 
CONTAINMENT POLICY
Mark A. Yost Jr.
Towson University


    Containment is the term used to designate the guide for the United States foreign policy during the majority of the Cold War ranging from the end of World War II to about 1989.  It was a strategic foreign policy that was put into place to check the expansionistic policy of the Soviet Union.  In the picture to the left  (Northern Europe, 1998: 1), it can be seen the number of countries that are bordering Russia.  By the end of World War II, most of these countries had been annexed into the Soviet Union and thus a need for containment was established.
    The policy was initiated by President Harry S. Truman in 1947 in response to the British no longer being able to support the economic rebuilding of Greece and Turkey.  In a speech to congress on March 12, 1947, Truman laid the ground work for this policy of containment, telling the citizens of the United States that it was our duty to help any country trying to keep itself a free nation state, when he said:

"At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must chose between alternate ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.

One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guaranties of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.

The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcible imposed upon the majority.  It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way."  (Truman Doctrine 1947:  1-2)
 

In Truman's speech, he never actually states clearly that our goal should be the containment of communism, but the ideas stated in his speech are quite clear.  The United States would help any country trying to get away from the "second way of life," which quite obviously is communism.
     The idea of guiding our foreign policy with the intention of containment was later reinforced by the proposal of the Marshall Plan, by George C. Marshall on June 5, 1947.  In a commencement address at Harvard University, Marshall opened the doors for massive economic aid to Western Europe because without it, he said that political stability could never return to Europe.  It was Marshall's idea that the United States should offer aid to any country that requests it, and through this aid economic order could be regained without any countries falling prey to the conditions that make it easy for communism to take hold.  They had seen in the past that when countries having failing economies, the communist parties usually gained power and in the case of the Soviet Union, take over the government.  By establishing a reasonable amount of aid to these countries to help them rebuild post-war Europe, the U.S. hoped to prevent any other countries from having the conditions that make it easy for a communist way of life to look good.  The reasons for increasing aid are best stated by George C. Marshall himself:
"In considering the requirements for the rehabilitation of Europe, the physical loss of life, the visible destruction of cities, factories, mines, and railroads was correctly estimated, but it has become obvious during recent months that this visible destruction was probably less serious than the dislocation of the entire fabric of the European economy...Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine but against hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos."  (Marshall 1947:  2-4)
    The policy of containment is directly alluded to in one other document which probably is the most clear as it sets up the the foreign policy. In fact, the actual term containment comes from this document.   It comes from an article in Foreign Affairs, written anonymously at first, but is now known to be written by George F. Kennan.  A historian, Lawrence Kaplan says that according to Kennan, "the only course open to America was to dam the expansion of the Soviet Union by military and other means until the internal stresses within Communism and external failures of an aggressive foreign policy should undermine Soviet confidence in it's thesis."  (Kaplan  1968:  1).  This article takes into account the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and clearly states the goals of the United States for the Cold War and is a clear statement of the guiding force for the foreign policy. The ideas set up in this document were prescribed to for most of the cold war:
 
"Russia, as opposed to the western world in general, is still by far the weaker party, that Soviet policy is highly flexible, and that Soviet society may well contain deficiencies which will eventually weaken its own total potential.  This would of itself warrant the United States entering with reasonable confidence upon a policy of firm containment, designed to confront the Russians with unalterable counter-force at every point where they show signs of encroaching upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world."  (Kennan 1947:  3)
    Thus, the basic idea of containment policy was then to prevent the Soviet World from expanding it's borders and communism.  It was the fear of the United States that if they did nothing to stop the spread of communism, that it would not take long for it to spread to the U.S.  This fear was the initial cause of the Cold War for the United States, and resulted in policymaking guided by containment.
 


 
 


--Main Page--Harry S. Truman Page--George C. Marshall Page--George F. Kennan Page--Bibliography Page--

Click Here to Return to The Encyclopedia of International Relations