Cold War Policy
Four 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.
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.
Select all three instruments of the new foreign policy.
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.
An aim, an instrument, or the pattern of the conflict?
Sort each element of Cold War policy.
Korea appears in the CED as...
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...
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.
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).