Cold War Policy
IntroducedFour aims, stated together
- United States policymakers engaged in a cold war with the authoritarian Soviet Union, seeking to limit the growth of Communist military power and ideological influence, create a free-market global economy, and build an international security system.
- Four aims: limit military power, limit ideological influence, create a free-market global economy, and build an international security system.
- The third and fourth are constructive, not defensive — the policy was to build institutions, not only to block a rival.
Select all four aims the CED names.
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The last two are constructive, not defensive.
Three instruments
- As postwar tensions dissolved the wartime alliance between Western democracies and the Soviet Union, the United States developed a foreign policy based on collective security, international aid, and economic institutions that bolstered non-Communist nations.
- Collective security, international aid, and economic institutions — none of these is a war, and all three are permanent commitments.
- 7.5's Senate had refused exactly this kind of commitment in 1919; the contrast is the clearest continuity-and-change point in the unit.
One policy, four kinds of instrument- stated, economic, military, fought
Select all three instruments of the new foreign policy.
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All three are permanent commitments — the kind 1919 refused.
Containment, including Korea
- Concerned by expansionist Communist ideology and Soviet repression, the United States sought to contain communism through a variety of measures, including major military engagements in Korea.
- A variety of measures with a major military engagement among them — containment covers both diplomacy and war.
- 8.8 will add Vietnam to the same sentence, so the two wars are described as instances of one policy.
Build containment out of its instruments
Containment is a policy; the Doctrine, the Plan, NATO and Korea are four kinds of instrument.
Korea appears in the CED as...
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8.8 adds Vietnam to the same sentence.
Two of the four aims are constructive, not defensive. The United States sought to create a free-market global economy and build an international security system — the policy was to build institutions, not only to block a rival, and 7.5's Senate had refused exactly this kind of commitment in 1919.
'Fluctuated' describes a pattern with...
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The same word Europe's 9.4 used for the Soviet bloc.
The Cold War fluctuated
- The Cold War fluctuated between periods of direct and indirect military confrontation and periods of mutual coexistence (or détente).
- Fluctuated describes a pattern with no single direction — the same word Europe's 9.4 used for the Soviet bloc relationship.
- So the objective's continuities and changes are built into the CED's own description of the conflict.
7.5's Senate refused exactly this kind of ____ in 1919.
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The clearest continuity-and-change point in the unit.
Continuities and changes in policy
- The objective is the continuities and changes in Cold War policies from 1945 to 1980.
- Continuity: the four aims held throughout, and both parties supported containment (8.3).
- Change: the balance between confrontation and détente shifted, and 8.8's Vietnam produced opposition that Korea had not.
A policy of blocking an opponent ends when the opponent stops. A policy of building an economic and security system outlives the reason it was begun, because the institutions acquire members with their own interests.
United States policymakers engaged in a cold war with the authoritarian Soviet Union, seeking to limit the growth of Communist military power and ideological influence, create a free-market global economy, and build an international security system. The foreign policy rested on collective security, international aid, and economic institutions; containment used a variety of measures, including major military engagements in Korea; and the Cold War fluctuated between periods of direct and indirect military confrontation and periods of mutual coexistence (or détente).