The Misconceptions of the U.S. Containment Foreign Policy

The United States was a phenomenal success at containing communism after 1945 as long as one considers not falling into communism itself. The United States may have dodged the mighty communist virus but that doesn’t mean they succeeded in stopping it from infecting other areas of the world. The U.S. failed to stop the expansion of communism to any efficiency. Not only did all of Eastern Europe fall to communism, but the most populous nation on Earth, China, also fell to communism as well (Indirectly taking with it north Korea and Vietnam). The United States didn’t fully eliminate communism either. The U.S. gained a communist satellite 90 miles out of its boundaries, Cuba. It is clear that American foreign policy lacked to tackle its target of containment. One big step in the U.S. containment foreign policies’ failure was the promoting of N.A.T.O. This contributed to the communist expansion in 1949. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as it stood for, was comprised of the major W. European powers and the United States. Although this organization’s intentions were good, it backfired. Instead of preventing communist expansion, the organization forced a paranoid Soviet Union to flex its muscles. In 1955, to counter the N.A.T.O. buildup, the U.S.S.R. created The Warsaw Pact. The U.S.S.R. formed an equal alliance with Eastern European nations. The Warsaw Pact shrouded virtually all of Eastern Europe in the Iron Curtain. This helped the Soviet Union to gain almost as much land as Napoleon or Hitler; but without a war. N.A.T.O., a united effort at the containment of communism, had boomeranged into a united expansion of communism. Another leading cause to America’s failure in containment of communism was due to its participation in the Vietnam War. In accordance with the Truman Doctrine, the U.S. sent American troops to South Vietnam in 1963 to try to support the non-Communist regime (since the South Vietnamese leader had been assassinated). Fighting a traditional war in a guerrilla setting and the insistence that we could win the war without popular support of the South Vietnamese were two key elements of our failure. The United States suffered 68,000 dead along with 400,000 South Vietnamese allies. It was 1973 when we finally started to withdraw our troops, and in 1976, all of Vietnam came under rule by the Communist North. Later, Vietnam would occupy Laos and Cambodia in part of an Asian Soviet bloc. Although communism had taken over many areas of the world, the expansion of communism was not yet over. The final factor to the U.S. containment foreign policies’ failure that I will go into further detail about involves the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The United States had planned a literal effort of the Truman Doctrine. The Bay of Pigs was initiated and “organized” by the late Eisenhower administration. When J.F.K. came into office, the plan showed an attractive display of power to the new administration. Even though the plans weren’t fully organized and the timing was horrible, J.F.K. through the C.I.A. ordered the execution of the operation. On April 17, 1961, an armed force of about 1,500 trained Cuban exiles landed in the Bay of Pigs. The plan backfired as the exiles were ambushed and gunned down mercilessly; American air support never arrived. Containment was dashed once again. Some may view the policy of containment as a success due to the Soviet Union’s end. Although, the Soviet Union is still not completely dead and still functions in some areas of the world today. Most eastern European countries have active and moderately strong socialist/ communist parties. Vietnam, Laos, North Korea, Cuba and China are still completely Communist nations. Therefore, not only was America’s impetus for containment of communism a failure, but its’ failures can still be seen to this day.