FREE ESSAY ON CONTAINMENT

CONTAINMENT

James Livingstone Critical analysis of Americas policy of Containment
Block:A History 12 
America's Policy of Containment was introduced by George Kennan in 1947. This policy had
a few good points but many more bad points.Kennan's depiction of communism as a malignant
parasite that had to be contained by all possible measures became the basis of the Truman
Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and National Security Act in 1947. In his Inaugural Address of
January 20, 1949, Truman made four points about his program for peace and freedom: to
support the UN, the European Recovery Program, the collective defence of the North
Atlantic, and a "bold new program" for technical aid to poor nations. Because of his
programs, the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony and peace.
Containment was not just a policy. It was a way of life. 
In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the
Soviet Union as its principal opponent. The United States misunderstood the Soviet
regime. .Despite much pretence, national security had not been a major concern of US
planners and elected officials. historical records reveal this clearly. Few serious
analysts took issue with George Kennan's position that it is not Russian military power
which is threatening us, it is Russian political power ; or with President Eisenhower's
consistent view that the Russians intended no military conquest of Western Europe and
that the major role of NATO was to convey a feeling of confidence to exposed populations,
which was suposed to make them sturdier, politically, in their opposition to Communist
inroads. 
the US dismissed possibilities for peaceful resolution of the Cold War conflict, which
would have left thepolitical threat intact. In his history of nuclear weapons, McGeorge
Bundy writes that he is aware of no serious contemporary proposal...that ballistic
missiles should somehow be banned by agreement before they were ever deployed,
even though these were the only potential military threat to the US. It was always the
political threat of so-called "Communism that was the primary concern. Of course, both
the US and USSR would have preferred that the other simply disappear. But since this
would obviously have involved mutual annihilation, the Cold War was established. 
According to the conventional Western view, the Cold War was a conflict between two
superpowers, caused by Soviet aggression, in which the U.S. tried to contain the Soviet
Union and protect the world from it. If this view is a doctrine of theology, there's no
need to discuss it. If it is intended to shed some light on history, we can easily put it
to the test, bearing in mind a very simple point: if you want to understand the Cold War,
you should look at the events . If you do so, a very different picture emerges. 
On the Soviet side, the events of the Cold War were repeated interventions in Eastern
Europe: tanks in East Berlin and Budapest and Prague. These interventions took place
along the route that was used to attack and virtually destroy Russia three times in this
century alone. On the US side, intervention was worldwide, reflecting the status attained
by the US as the first truly global power in history. 
On the domestic front, the Cold War helped the Soviet Union entrench its
military-bureaucratic ruling class in power, and it gave the US a way to compel its
population to subsidise high-tech industry. It isn't easy to sell all that to the
domestic populations. The technique used was the old stand-by-fear of a great enemy. 
The Cold War provided that too. No matter how outlandish the idea that the Soviet Union
and its tentacles were strangling the West, the Evil Empire was in fact evil, was an
empire and was brutal. Each superpower controlled its primary enemy its own population by
terrifying it with the crimes of the other. 
In crucial respects, then, the Cold War was a kind of tacit arrangement between the
Soviet Union and the United States under which the US conducted its wars against the
Third World and controlled its allies in Europe, while the Soviet rulers kept an
iron grip on their own internal empire and their satellites in Eastern Europe -- each
side using the other to justify repression
and violence in its own domains. 
The" space race" was the direct result of the Policy of Containment . The Americans
simply had to beat the Russians to the moon. The Russians had beaten the Americans into
space with Sputnik and put the first man, Yuri Gregarian . The Americans increased
funding for research, education in science programs. Mr. Kennedy announced that they
would put a man on the moon within ten years; they did it in eight years. Technology grew
by leaps and bounds because of the Cold War.
Because of the Arms Race and the Space Race, the States amassed a huge debt. They had to
pump lots of money into science and research.
The Cold War also almost brought about the destruction of the world several times. During
the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was prepared to take the world into World War III so he
could get another term in office. The Russians claimed that they were attempting to
install purely "defensive" missiles . A "defensive" missile was, in fact, a nuclear
missile which would be used when the Russian felt that Cuban independence was threatened.
It should be noted that the Americans had missiles bases in Turkey, Britain, and Italy ;
all aimed at the Soviet Union.
In 1950, McArthyism swept the country. McCarthy was a senator who frequently went to the
senate drunk. One day, he stood up and claimed that he had a list of one hundred and
fifty names of known communists operating in the United States. Although,when he was
asked ,he was never able to produce the list. He had his own House formed, the House of
Unamerican Activities, in which he tried suspected communists. The whole country went
Communist crazy. People were paranoid and many people's lives were destroyed. This lasted
until McCarthy died in the late fifties.
The Containment Policy won out in the end and caused the collapse of the Soviet Union.
This was not a good thing because that left only one superpower in the world with nothing
to keep it in check.
Despite its many flaws, the Containment Policy eventually achieved its goal - the
destruction of communism.