The doctrine of containment was a strategic foreign policy that was pursued by the United States in the late 1950s and early 1940s (Nettels, 2013) . The doctrine was formed to check the expansionist policy that was being spread by the Soviet Union during the cold war and after World War II. The doctrine was first laid out by John. F. Kennan in 1947. The doctrine stated that communism needed to be isolated and contained before it spread to neighboring countries. Foreign policy advisors from America believed that if one country fell to communism, surrounding countries would also fall to communism like a row of dominoes. Hence the doctrine was aimed to contain/isolate communism that was being spread by the Soviet Union. President Harry Truman adopted the containment policy as part of his Truman doctrine in 1947. This redefined America’s containment policy, which was a foreign policy as one that supports people who are free and resisting attempted subjugation from outside pressures or armed minorities. The doctrine came to height during the Greek civil war of 1946-1949. During this time, much of the world was waiting to see the direction to which Turkey and Greece would go. At this juncture, the United States agreed to help Greece and Turkey to avoid the possibility that the Soviet Union would lead the two countries to communism, thus countering communism with the Containment doctrine.
The containment doctrine was formulated by George F. Kennan, who was a career foreign service officer (Rustomjee, 2013) . This doctrine became the basic United States strategy for fighting the cold war with the Soviet Union in 1947-1989. Kennan's ideas, which were the basis of the formation of the containment doctrine first came to the public in 1947. The ideas came to the public in the form of an anonymous contribution to a foreign affairs journal. Kennan wrote that the main element of any policy belonging to the United States that was toward the Soviet Union must be patient but firm, long term and vigilant containment of expansive tendencies by Russia. Kennan called for the countering of Soviet Union pressure against Western world free institutions through adroit and vigilant application of counter-force at series of political and geographical points that were constantly shifting thus corresponding to maneuvers and shifts of Soviet policy. This was the origin of the containment doctrine.
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Critics of the doctrine stated that the doctrine was the beginning of a long process through which the united states committed resources and manpower, became a world policeman in a futile attempt to contain the communist conspiracy. The critics did not see the usefulness of the containment doctrine against Soviet intentions (Duiker, 2012) . However, the defenders of the doctrine saw it beneficial as Americans abandoned isolationism and accepted full responsibilities as a world power reluctantly. The critics and defenders agree that the doctrine was a fundamental turning point in the history of American foreign policy. The defenders of the doctrine, therefore, saw that the doctrine was useful in countering the communism that was being spread by the Soviet Union, thus countering the Soviet intentions.
The European recovery program/Marshal plan was one of the examples of containment policy. Here, America offered help to countries resisting the spread of communism. Such countries included Turkey and Greece (Hasou, 2011) . The second example was in West Berlin, where the Soviet Union wanted to force all the allies out of West Berlin so they could make West Berlin a communist city. Here, the Soviet Union blocked all the land routes in West Berlin but America organized the Berlin airlift to provide supplies to West Berlin, and the Soviet Union finally ended the Berlin blockade. The third example of the containment policy, where America opposed the spread of communism was in South Korea. Here, North Korea invaded South Korea to make it a communist country. America worked with the United Nations to kick out North Korea out of South Korea. Under General Douglas MacArthur’s leadership, South Korea was shielded and kept from becoming a communist country.
References
Duiker, W., (2012). U.S. containment policy and the conflict in Indochina . Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Hasou, T., (2011). The containment doctrine . al-Ain, U.A.E.: Emirates Book Shop.
Nettels, C., (2013). The American doctrine of containment . Ithaca, N.Y.: [publisher not identified].
Rustomjee, S. (2013). Containment and Failures of Containment. Group Analysis , 40 (4), 523-537. doi: 10.1177/0533316407083334
