Did Containment Work?

POLS206 - Diplomatic History Post-1945

The threat of Soviet expansion was always felt by the Western world, even through

times of alliance, however, the common enemy of the East and West, Nazi Germany,

prevented a way of doing this without jeopardising the relationship. (Gaddis, 2005: 4). The

USA assumed that the aid given to the Soviets throughout the war would sufficiently keep the

USSR in check and that the Russians would become dependant on American aid (Partos,

1993: 11); this obviously was not the case. In his 1946 ‘Long Telegram’, George Kennan

outlined the idea that if the expansion of the USSR could be suppressed to the point where

the USSR began to look inwards, then they would see cracks in their system, attempt to fix

them, and ultimately become overwhelmed and collapse (Partos, 1993: 15). This idea was put

into practice with the creation of the ‘Truman Doctrine’, dictating a foreign policy that the

USA would aid any “free [persons] resisting attempted subjugation by an armed minority”

(Robbins, 1998: 41). What this Doctrine was expressing, is that it was in no way an outright

intention to combat communism already set in stone, instead, it would attempt to stop, in

other words contain, the spread of it where necessary (Partos, 1993: 16). The lack of

intervention within the Chinese civil war is proof of this discrepancy. It must be pointed out

however, that Kennan was openly “opposed [to] the tone and the specific recommendations

of the” Doctrine (Berger, 1967: 125/6); he felt the Doctrines interpretation of his idea was not

as limited in response to the Soviets as he had envisaged. Containment, in Kennan’s view,

was not a policy of being police force against communism or creating a Soviet/American

world of clashing ideologies; such an attempt would contrast far too much with American

attitudes on foreign affairs. The idea, claimed Kennan, was to hold back the USSR as to

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allow Asia and Europe to re-develop fairly with no oppressor stunting such growth (Gaddis,

2005: 40). This view can actively be seen when looking at the Containment policies in

respect to Europe but soon shifted to policies of a more aggressive nature such as the conflict-

heavy interventions within Asia. These more aggressive policies stem from Paul H. Nitze,

Kennan’s successor, and NSC-68 (Gaddis, 2005: 88), an effective blueprint for the policy of

Containment; while similar to the principles of Kennan’s theory of Containment, Nitze’s

diverged greatly in terms of the amount of action thought to be required for the policy to be a

success. The effectiveness of the overall policy of Containment is still, even today, rife with

debate; nevertheless, the following essay will discuss the extent of success, if any, that the

policy of Containment achieved in holding back to USSR physically and ideologically,

specifically within Europe, Korea and Vietnam, ultimately acknowledging that the USSR did

indeed collapse (Partos, 1993: 16), however, the policies over the forty years that were

involved in this happening were not strictly just Kennan’s. Moreover, it is clear that the

spread of communism was not always successfully controlled, as evidenced with the ‘Fall of

China’, North-Korea, Vietnam and arguably most embarrassingly, Cuba.

After Britain felt they were no longer able to support the anti-communist forces in

Greece in early 1947 (Gilbert and Large, 1991: 366), the US took over their effort in

acknowledgment that losing Greece would open up the floodgates for communism in an area

of “vital strategic importance to the West” (Thompson, 1981: 130) only to have it “spread

throughout the entire Middle East” (Berger, 1967: 126). This first official act of

Containment, on the face of it, with the Greek communists defeated in 1949 and the

communist spread stunted in that area (Partos, 1993: 16), can be seen as a success.

Communism, and Soviet influence never spread to Greece and the USA were able to create

their own sphere of influence as to stop any containment leaks to its neighbours. It can be

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suggested, in hindsight, that the US involvement in Greece may have been quite heavy

handed now that it is apparent that Stalin had no intention of enforcing communism within

Greece (Partos, 1993: 16). Nonetheless, the communism in the area was defeated. Had

containing the ideology failed, whether Soviet enforced or not, there would always be the risk

of further spread and the ability for the USSR to add Greece and its neighbours to its sphere

of influence. In sum, it can be seen that this first instance of Containment started off as a

success.

General George Marshall’s claims of a sinking Europe in dire need of divisive

American action were taken seriously (Bartlett, 1984: 266). Consequently, By way of

attempting to re-build the damaged European nations of the war, the European Recovering

Program (Marshall Plan) was established (Partos, 1993: 17). The USSR’s rejection of the

plan (Gaddis, 2005: 36), can be said to have worked out for the US. The US saw the

economic issues surrounding Europe and feared that parts were close to a revolutionary

situation; they believed they needed “allies wherever they could be found” to counter USSR

exploitation of Europe (Bartlett, 1984: 266); While it would have been embarrassing for the

US to not have offered aid towards the Soviets, the rejection was not viewed with

disappointment; it simply cemented the ideological line that cut across Europe between the

West and the USSR (Partos, 1993: 18). In regards to the success of this economic variation of

the Containment policy, the Marshall Plan created an opportunity for the US to suppress the

possibility of communist parties taking advantage of the weakened nations thereby filling the

power vacuum they feared the USSR could grasp (Thompson, 1981: 120). Overall its success

can be seen in the sense that the USSR did not achieve the spread of its principles physically,

politically or ideologically. The successful build up of the European nations to the level, or

even greater, to what they were before the War is seen as serving the US’s purpose of

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creating a Western-minded European buffer that could hold back the USSR, one such

example being the highly westernised Federal Republic of Germany in 1949 (Robbins, 1998:

36). In turn, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed, creating an all for one, one

for all philosophy for all signatories to counter the USSR. This can ultimately be seen as a

move that consolidated the European positions of the two Cold War superpowers for the next

forty years, creating a stalemate in the continent until the Soviet’s collapse (Gilbert and

Large, 1991: 392, Partos, 1993: 22). In this regard, Containment can be said to have worked

in Europe. Ultimately, throughout Europe, communism did not spread, but the policies used

slowly shifted away from what Kennan viewed as appropriate force. NATO, he argued,

simply threatened the USSR and raised tensions; the Warsaw Pact is evidence of this.

However, in regards to the overall success of Containment, the events outside of Europe must

be analysed.

Escalation within the Korean Peninsula in 1950 caused both Eastern and Western eyes

to fully turn to South-East Asia (Partos, 1993: 22). It was this shift where the policy of

Containment became one of physical US intervention. The division of Korea in 1948 into two

nations was one the first signs of communism spreading into Asia (Gaddis, 2005: 42). The

failure in negotiations to unify Korea eventually led to the Southern invasion by the North in

an attempt to forcefully unify the peninsula under a communist flag resorting in a principally

American, UN military sanction against the North (Gilbert and Large, 1991: 376). Letting the

North create a single communist state would have detrimental effects across the world

(Bartlett, 1984: 299). The US knew all too well that “if aggression succeeded in Korea, it

would spread through Asia and Europe” (Thompson, 1981: 180). This meant two things for

the west in terms of Containment. Firstly, the US would have to do something to counter the

communist spread of the North-Koreans, regardless of what; “inaction would only encourage

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further communist movements elsewhere” (Bartlett, 1984: 299). If nothing was seen to be

done then Stalin, who endorsed the Korean conflict to start with (Partos, 1993: 22) would

view it as a chance to break the European stalemate; “failure to act would set an unfortunate

precedent for…Germany” (Partos, 1993: 22). Secondly, the US needed to prove that all the

emphasis over the previous decade towards collective security was credible, not simply just

strong rhetoric (Thompson, 1981: 180). With Chinese aid, the North-Koreans were able to

successfully counter the UN forces to the 38th parallel creating a stalemate for the next 2 years

(Bartlett, 1984: 301, Robbins, 1998: 70/71). In terms of the effectiveness of the entire conflict

in relation to the policy of containment, it is possible to assert various different conclusions.

On one hand, Kennan’s version of Containment can be seen to have failed; conflict can be

said to have caused the Beijing regime to flex its muscles, apparently confirming that it was

“thoroughly locked into collaboration with Moscow” (Robbins, 1998: 45/46). But on the

other hand, Nitze’s NSC-68 policy can be seen as sending a clear message to the East that

Containment was not just political or economical, as seen in Europe. It could also be said that

the Korean War was too much of a diversion from what really mattered: Europe (Gaddis,

2005: 121). Ultimately, the attempts of diplomatic Containment such as the negotiations to

unify Korea failed only to be succeeded by brutal fighting which can be suggested to have

been fruitless if acknowledged that the outcome of the War was effectively the same as the

start, albeit with 4 million less people in the world (Robbins, 1998: 45). However, while it is

obvious that the Korean War didn’t eradicate the communist spread in the Peninsula, it did

however show the US was willing to use force, consolidating its new approach to

Containment. Ultimately the Containment policy can be said to have worked in relation to the

Korean peninsula and its close neighbours, such as Japan. What’s more is that it also gave the

Americans a good insight into the workings of the Chinese. However, Containment within

Asia was far from resolved.

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 The embarrassing French defeat by the hands Viet Minh resulted in mediation

between the USA, Great Britain and Russia concluding that the now christened Vietnam

should be split, much like Korea, into two half’s, via the 17th Parallel (Gilbert and Large,

1991: 377). While it may have seemed like a solution to hold back communism, north of the

Parallel, and thus showing containment could work without the fighting witnessed in the

Korean Peninsula but ultimately aid given to the South-Vietnamese resulted in physical US

combatants (Morrock, 1967: 239). When American boots finally hit the ground in March

1965, it was to show firm action in preventing the ‘domino effect’ (Robbins, 1998: 92). The

entire execution of the Vietnam war can be seen as a failure for the USA; The Viet-Minh,

now Viet-Cong, had much experience compared to the American rookie conscripts

(Trueman, 2010). After years of brutal, costly and extremely unpopular fighting, President

Nixon slowly pulled out of Vietnam, decreasing troop numbers but still giving aid so that the

South-Vietnamese could combat the Viet-Cong (Robbins, 1998: 104). The attempts to quell

the communist threat and stop any potential containment breach were arguably in vain; the

majority of the South-Vietnamese people were in support for the Viet-Minh and felt Diem to

be an awful leader (Morrock, 1967: 223, Gaddis, 2005: 244). The Policy of Containment, in

the form of NSC-68, was ultimately extremely unsuccessful. The result of the American

pullout was that the North-Vietnamese ultimately conquered the South showing weakness

within America insomuch as having fought, physically, for almost a decade only to see

Vietnam united under communism (Schroeder, 2010). What the Vietnam War did for the

success, or lack thereof, of Containment was show that Nitze’s interpretation of the policy,

unlike in Korea, had the potential to drastically fail. It also highlighted the criticism Kennan

saw within NSC-68 in that “unfriendly regimes elsewhere, thought not to be desired, posed

little threat to global stability so long as they lacked means of manifesting their hostility”

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(Gaddis, 2005: 89). The question remains whether action in Vietnam had any point to it at all,

considering Containment of the North failed, yet the rest of Asia did not succumb to

Communism, contradicting the ‘Domino Theory’. In sum, Containment, in this case, failed

miserably.

With the rise of Castro, the US now had the potential of a massively uncontained

spread of communism throughout South-America. The failure to contain this spread to Cuba

left the USA in a tense position. The Cuban revolution not only showed its local South-

American neighbours that uprisings could be successful, but also weakened North America’s

stance towards its Containment policy; it was of great importance to the US that discontent

within South-America did not come close to revolution (Robbins, 1998: 110). This led to the

Bay of Pigs catastrophe (Gaddis, 2005, 156). The disastrous attempt to overthrow the Cuban

regime via the funding of an anti-Castro movement not only showed weakness in the US not

being able to counter the communist threat but showed a large failure in regards to ‘allowing’

communism to get so close to its borders (Partos, 1993: 192). However, while the US can be

seen as letting the Containment policy crack under pressure, it must be said that President

Kennedy’s stern handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis showed that the US was not about to let

Containment fail. The Crisis ultimately ended in a Soviet defeat and showed the lack of

credibility Castro had as a world leader (Gilbert and Large, 1991: 443). Ultimately the

‘Cuban problem’ that the US faced had the potential to end far worse than it did, and while it

obviously showed a US failure in stopping the spread communism, overall the threat was

contained via discrediting Cuba and showing weakness in the USSR by forcing them to back

down (Partos, 1993: 76); what can be suggested is that Containment within South and

Central-America can be seen to have had its moments of grand failure but one large success

countered them. In sum, The USA, from the mid-1950s to mid-1970s, can be seen to have

struggled with its inability to show great success towards its policy of Containment, what’s

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more is that it left Vietnam with a loss of face now up against a Soviet Union where its

nuclear advantage was slowly slipping away.

The end of the 1980s showed a massive change in the policies of the USSR.

Gorbachev, wanting to usher in a new era for the USSR, was finding the weight of his empire

increasingly overbearing (Partos, 1993: 237). The chain reaction seen from the re-instatement

of the Polish non-communist party ‘Solidarity’ and the fact that the economic reforms within

the USSR where failing to produce any improvements was the beginning of the end of the

USSR (Robbins, 1998: 208, Partos, 1993: 237). The ‘sacrifice’ of Eastern Europe, for

example the landslide victory of Solidarity and the subsequent ‘victories’ over communism in

Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Bulgaria to name a few (Partos, 1993: 244, Robbins, 1998:

208/209), were hailed by Gorbachev as a way of bettering the economy claiming the USSR’s

financial and defensive positions had “improved by ‘shredding’ Eastern Europe” (Robbins,

1998: 207). Conversely Gilbert and Large claim the loss of the Eastern Europe territories as a

major downturn for the USSR; they were intrinsic to the Soviet Union’s economy as well as

providing vital soviet security (1991: 557). Ultimately both the Warsaw Pact and the USSR

lost a lot of credibility through the failure to keep Eastern Europe within the Soviet Orbit. In

turn, it is possible to relate this to the US policy of containment simply by acknowledging

that Containment in theory was designed to lead the USSR into such an environment where it

began to crumble. However, it is possible to reason that the loss of Eastern Europe was partly

due to the aggressive elements of Nitze-style Containment ideas. On top of the ever-mounting

illogical cost of maintaining the Soviet Empire, firm policies by Reagan kept advanced

technologies from the USSR and forced them into a situation where to match the US in arms

spending would result in a drastic turn around in the improvements in living standards

(Partos, 1993: 240, 250, Gaddis, 2005: 91). All in all, the policy of Containment even at the

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point of the USSR collapse can be said to have been successful or at least a far cry from the

events of the 1970s. Ethnic unrest, economic inefficiency and general Eastern European

discontent broke the Soviet empire apart, due to the efforts of Containment which created

such a chain reaction. It must be said that the collapse of the Soviet Union even up until its

end was due to the policy of Containment, but unlike the Vietnam or Korean War’s, it was a

mixture of original Kennan style thought and that of Nitze’s NSC-68.

The policy of Containment can be seen to have changed greatly over the Cold War.

Ultimately the emphasis on military thought that Nitze’s interpretation of Containment

gained greater acceptance in the overall policies towards the USSR as a whole. The Korean

War showed the shift from Kennan’s approach of blocking Soviet expansion via political,

economic, psychological and military measures to Nitze’s idea that “without superior

aggregate military strength in being and readily mobilizable, a policy of ‘containment’…is no

more than a policy of bluff” (Gaddis, 2005: 97). What the Korean War did then, with the

ultimatum it faced, was shift the policy of Containment into a new direction. That new

emphasis on military might can be argued to have almost caused complete destruction on

both sides with the arms race that stemmed from such an ideal and also backfired for the US

in terms of Vietnam which ultimately filled communist nations such as Cuba with confidence

towards their ideological survival (Robbins, 1998: 109). What’s more is that Nitze, through

NSC-68, did agree with Kennan in terms of the diversity within the Soviet Sphere that would

ultimately “create problems for the Kremlin” (Gaddis, 2005: 94). The systematic loss of

Eastern European nations towards the end of the Soviet Union, due to mass discontent proves

Kennan partially correct in this sense. Even so, Nitze, and the policies of NSC-68 were still

seen to have added greatly to the collapse of the USSR; the simple assertion of the Soviets

‘crumbling under their weight’ cannot answer many gaps that caused the fall. Again, revising

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the loss of Eastern Europe, while the diversity did indeed cause concern for the USSR, the

economic reasoning, as stated, for the loss of the sphere fits well into Nitze’s NSC-68: “the

American economy, when [operating] at a level approaching full efficiency, can provide

enormous resources for purposes other than civilian consumption while simultaneously

providing a higher standard of living (Gaddis, 2005: 91). This is exactly what the USSR

could not do, but while it may seem like a victory for Nitze over the ideas of Kennan, it must

be said that the principle of defeating the USSR without direct military pressure, which is

what occurred in terms of the American and Soviet economies, is strongly linked with the

thoughts of Kennan. Nevertheless, the collapse of the Soviet Union was the main effort of the

policy, and, ultimately, this occurred. Soviet influence might have broken free from

containment throughout the forty plus years of Cold War, and the policies of Containment

can be seen to have changed, both affectively and hazardously, but nonetheless, the aim of

Containment was met, the USSR was Contained to the point where its communism did not

successfully spread across the globe.

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 Bibliography

Berger, H. W. A Conservative Critique of Containment in Horowitz, D (1967) Containment and

Gaddis, J.L. (2005) Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security
Policy During The Cold War, New York: Oxford University Press.

Gilbert, F. and Large, D. C. (1991) The End of The European Era, 1890 to the Present, New York: W.
W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Morrock, R. Revolution and Intervention in Vietnam in Horowitz (1967) Containment and

Partos, G (1993) The War That Came In From The Cold, Great Britain, Royal Institute of International
Affairs.

Robbins, K (1998) The World Since 1945: A Concise History, New York: Oxford University Press

Schroeder, J (2010) Vietnam War [online] eHistory available from

Thompson, K. W. (1981) Cold War Theories: Volume 1, World Polarization, 1943 – 1953, USA:
Louisiana State University Press

Trueman, C. (2010) Vietnam: America and Vietnam [Online] The Cold War, available from
[Link] [accessed 11th December 2010]

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