U.S. Foreign Policy During the Cold War

U.S. "Containment" Strategy During the Cold War

American Foreign Policy Since WWII

M. Koch

4 December 2012

 Executive Applications of George Kennan's Containment Theory

            Prior to World War II, theories of foreign policy had not been fully developed to the extent they are today. Political leaders viewed foreign policy through narrowed lenses that only took into account the actions and attitudes of those nations that were of immediate relevance to their own goals. After the Second World War, however, perceptions about international relations changed substantially.  The extensive fighting and the massive destruction that ensued led leaders to realize the need to develop long term, tactical strategies in order to ensure their state’s international security. This newfound necessity led to the study of international theory we have today.

            While many theories about international relations have emerged, the one that has managed to dominate U.S. foreign policy for over forty years is George Kennan’s theory of containment.  The basis for his theory rested in the idea that all nations sought to “protect the security of [their] nation” from all real or perceived threats that they believe other nations impose on them (Gaddis 26). Hence, nations try to pursue two fundamental objectives in foreign politics in order to mitigate these vulnerabilities.

In order to ensure protection against security threats, the first objective requires that a state maintain the means to “pursue the development of its internal life without serious interference, or threat of interference, from foreign powers” (26). Secondly, a state ought to

“advance the welfare of its people, by promoting a world order in which this nation can make the maximum contribution to the peaceful and orderly development of other nations and derive maximum benefit from their experiences and abilities” (26).

Kennan believed these goals were the best means for maximizing America’s international security, although he warned that achieving “’complete security or perfection’” is impossible, suggesting that the quest for security is a never ending battle against evolving global threats (26).

            To promote these objectives, Kennan advocated a multilateral approach. This would require the U.S. to use indirect means of deterring those so called “threatening” nations from protracting U.S. interests. This requires using militant, economic, and psychological tactics to attain the desired end. In the interest of avoiding the destruction produced by armed conflict, Kennan emphasized using subversive psychological strategies to quell national threats, thereby preserving the stability of current global power balances.

            This status quo assumption evolved from Kennan’s power balance theory of international relations (28). He believed that since power was perpetually unequally distributed among states, minimizing international conflict would require the activism of “dominate” states to exert their influence on weaker states; thus ensuring that the actions of weaker states would not challenge current power distributions. Kennan believed that such “policing” conduct—done responsibly and with restraint by the dominate powers—would ensure that the majority of nations around the world would be pushed closer to accomplishing the fundamental security objectives mentioned above.  

Kennan believed that there were five “dominate” nations in the international system that should act as these “global policemen.” These included the major “industrial power centers,” which he thought possessed the economic and military means necessary to pose credible threats to other nations. This list included the U.S., Great Britain, Germany and central Europe, the Soviet Union, and Japan” (29). Kennan suggested that these five states ought to oversee the interactions between weaker nations. Further, he suggested that it would serve the vital interests of these centers to also monitor the behaviors among each other, so as to suppress any attempts by one major power to conspire against another industrial center. These techniques, Kennan assured, would help the current industrial centers preserve current power balances over the long term.

Countries not on this list were not considered prima facie national interests, unless they allied with one of the above centers in operations that appeared to threaten or actually intended to threaten U.S. national security interests. Such a move would elevate the amount of concern and attention the U.S. gives to the weaker country, perhaps even to the point of becoming a primary national security interest. This phenomenon effectively divided national security interests into two categories: those perceived to be “vital” to national interests, and those perceived to be “peripheral” interests. As we will examine later, this distinction would prove to carry major implications for U.S. foreign policy towards communism during the Cold War.

In light of these principles, Kennan warned that the project of containing the spread of Soviet communism around the globe would require the immense diligence and patience of U.S. leadership. He claimed that successful containment would result in having induced fundamental changes to Soviet foreign policy thinking: he saw the ultimate goal as having morphed Soviet hostility towards the U.S. and Western democracies into a sense of tolerance for non-communist states, and perhaps even inspire within the Soviets a willingness to cooperate with its Western dichotomies (41).

Altering Soviet attitudes on foreign policy would, Kennan believed, help end the Cold War in the most tactful and economic manner possible; through drawn out, peaceful negotiations instead of conventional or nuclear warfare.

            Hence, these principles guided Kennan’s containment strategy during the Cold War. They were not, however, fully utilized during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Nixon administrations. In varying degrees, each of these presidents modified Kennan’s approach, according to what they believed prudent and politically necessary under changing international conditions.

            President Eisenhower’s divergence from Kennan’s containment can be attributed to the shifts in the global balance of power during the 1950s. I assert this because there is little evidence suggesting that domestic politics or changes in security dilemma balances had any influence on Eisenhower’s foreign policy, given that a World War II American victory had spurred unprecedented prosperity and national pride during this decade. Internationally, however, the 1950s was a tumultuous time of recovery and political reshaping of states that had been exacerbated by war and struggled to retain control over their colonial territories and their political futures.

Theoretically, Eisenhower approached containment with the same tolerance for regime diversity as Kennan. Like Kennan, he did not necessarily equate the threat of Soviet-style communism with communist regimes that existed outside of Russian influence. This was mainly due to Eisenhower’s political pragmatism, as he believed that there were economic limitations to what foreign policy actions the U.S. could sustainably fund while maintaining global political favor. With this view, Eisenhower felt pressured to prioritize potential threats by conducting a “cost-benefit” analysis on each, so as to ensure that U.S. resources were allocated in the most economically and politically efficient manner (132-133). This method of prioritizing prevented him from trying to contain Soviet influence in by engaging in proxy wars where he did not witness believe there was sufficient evidence of Soviet support.  

            The Korean War exemplifies Eisenhower’s foreign political prudency, as endorseed by Kennan. While he opposed the use of proxy wars as a means of containing Soviet influence, Eisenhower believed that the conditions surrounding the Korean conflict necessitated U.S. intervention. He believed that Korea’s geographical proximity to both the USSR and China posed a threat, since both shared an interest in having Korea as another communist neighbor with whom they could trade and align policies. But the most substantive cause for U.S. intervention was the fact that the USSR was directly backing the North Korean army by supplying them with arms and Soviet military advisors (168-171).

Together, these factors constituted a substantial security threat to Americans, as Eisenhower feared that a communist Korea would advance the Soviet agenda to overtake

the U.S. as the world’s strongest industrial power. Overtaking the U.S. would compromise its most vital interest in maintaining complete and free “access to the world”—and the resources therein—because an antagonistic Moscow would be likely to obstruct U.S. efforts to obtain those resources (130). Hence, Eisenhower believed that the U.S. could not afford to watch Korea, or any other state, fall under the wing of Soviet influence.

Conversely, Eisenhower proved to share the same level of militant prudency that Kennan advocated. This was demonstrated through his policies towards the Yugoslavian communist dictator Josip Tito. Unlike in Korea, there was no cause for the Eisenhower administration to believe that Tito was an adherent to Moscow’s influence, nor any evidence to believe that he held the same intention of undermining U.S. power as his brethren to the East (153-154). Rather, Tito’s relationship with the USSR had repeatedly proven antagonistic. This was evidenced in Tito and Kruschev’s failure to reach an agreement at the 1948 Cominform summit. These factors led Eisenhower to downgrade the Croatian leader the category of “peripheral” threats: Tito may give cause for limited concern, but not substantial enough to necessitate U.S. action.

Unlike Eisenhower, divergences from Kennian containment during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations should be viewed as responding to the changing makeup of the security dilemma between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. I believe that the escalation of military power during their administrations prove that their main foreign policy concerns centered on asserting the nation’s position as an “impenetrable” force against the Soviet Union. In order to advance their position in what they saw to be a “’zero-sum game” for power, however, it became necessary for Kennedy and, later, Johnson, to compromise the primary tenants of containment (210).

In lieu of distinguishing between “peripheral” and “vital” interests, Kennedy saw all communist factions as dire threats to U.S. interests, whether they were actual Soviet allies or not. This motivated Kennedy to engage in the tactic of “symmetrical response” against all perceived threats (235). This directly opposed Kennan’s theory of distinguishing between threats and responding as necessary, a tactic which had come to be known as “asymmentrial response” (41).

Kennedy’s symmetrical response policy came from his belief that the global balance of power was not fragile, but rather was “as much a function of perceptions as of hardware, position, or will” (200). Hence, he held that even minor shifts in power distribution, real or perceived, “could cause chain reactions of panic to sweep the world” (200). Because his notion of power expanded to mere perception, Kennedy’s administration became hard-pressed to ensure that the U.S. was constantly seen as a global exemplar of industrial and military strength. This preoccupation with being perceived as “strong” and “resolute” led to policies that greatly increased the number and scale of U.S. foreign military engagements, and retarded the prospects of peaceful negotiation.

            These attitudes were exemplified when Kennedy tried to overcome the perceived “missile gap” between Washington and Moscow. Kennedy believed it was a vital American interest to match the nuclear capabilities of the USSR before they made potential U.S. retaliation futile in the event of an armed conflict. In Kennedy’s mind, closing the missile gap had multiple functions: it would maintain current power balances, and it would induce fears of American retaliation among vulnerable states, making them more easily deterred than they may have been otherwise.

While the latter function plays on Kennan’s emphasis on using psychological means to coerce weak countries to favor U.S.-style politics, Kennan would have seen a sudden military buildup as counterproductive to the process of transforming hostile Soviet thinking into amicable attitudes towards the Western democracies. Containment’s repudiation for challenging current security dilemma balances came from the doctrine’s fears that the enemy might perceive such a move as an act of aggression, thus constituting the action as a vital national threat that necessitates immediate suppression. Such acts would intensify the enemy’s existing anxieties by causing them to question their trust in the enemy nation, and ultimately propelling it to take defensive measures. Kennan believed that these things would retard the fundamental objective: to achieve a state of tolerance between two powerful, but ideologically antagonistic global powers.

While Kennedy and Johnson’s foreign policies were driven mostly by external political concerns, the Nixon administration, while its actions may have been a response to domestic political pressures, set its objectives on rebalancing power with the Soviet Union for the long term. By the time Nixon took office, American opinion on its foreign policies had waned from the nationalist fervor of Eisenhower’s administration to consensual frustration and suspicions about the government’s ulterior motives abroad.

These attitudes were partly the result of what Americans came to see as the arbitrary overextension of U.S. military containment abroad. Kennedy and Johnson’s resolve to “align American interests…with the processes of irreversible change” had provoked a series of ad hoc policies, whose goals and raisons de etat grew increasingly convoluted and remote from the public interest (201). These facts were aggravated further by Kennedy’s refusal to differentiate between communists dangers along peripheral and vital lines, which created not only an overall “perception of danger, but of elusiveness as well, making it difficult to know how, or to what, to respond” (205).

It seems as though Kennedy’s assumption of the complimentary relationship between domestic and foreign interests was incorrect (203). Kennedy’s adherence to the political ideology of achieving a state of global peace, one where every government was modeled after Western democracy, led him to first ignore and then bypass the economic and political limits that the American public had implicitly set.

This, in the end, pushed the Nixon administration to reassess the merits of military containment and instead begin recourse to Kennan’s psychological containment strategies. Nixon’s primary objective was to “try to reinforce those ‘tendencies’ inclined in the direction of accommodation, and to discourage those [tendencies] that were not” accommodating, while at the same time retract the U.S. from those international commitments that were deemed irrelevant to protecting America’s vital interests (289). This approach came to be known as the “Nixon Doctrine,” and was, at its core, like Kennan’s—“an exercise in behavior modification” (289, 302).

Nixon’s implemented his doctrine against the Soviet Union in 1972, during the SALT I negotiations. As Kennan would have supported, Nixon focused on pursuing negotiation talks, in hopes of lessening antagonisms to the point where the threat of violent conflict became nonexistent. Part of Nixon’s strategy for accelerating these disarmament talks involved him “tacking on” contested points to the main discussion, with the thinking that by reaching an agreement on the main issue, Soviet leaders would be induced into accepting concessions on the secondary issues. This has come to be known as “linkage,” and has served several corollary functions in promoting Nixon’s version of détente containment (290).

Kennan would have supported linkage because not only did it deescalate the military threat, it also offered a mechanism through which Nixon could exercise leverage against Soviet leadership. This was done because linkage “reflected the reality that, however diffuse and multidimensional power had become…its elements still affected one another” (292). It reminded the Soviets that “interests and threats, however capable of differentiation or specification, still did not exist in discrete vacuums” (292). This contextualization was done by “triangulating” the interests between the USSR, the U.S., and a third country (very often, China) in such way that it amplified the costs for the USSR, should it refuse compliance of American proposals (295).

Another psychological advantage that linkage brought the ability to inspire anxiety by leaving the consequences of noncompliance ambiguous. This had a profound impact on Soviet behavior, as uncertainty about future U.S. retaliation incited fears about being left in the least favorable conditions, both politically and economically.

 Hence, it can be said that Nixon’s foreign policy differed from Kennedy’s (and hence accorded with Kennan’s) because he realized the need for the U.S. to “accept the fact that conflict and disharmony were and would continue to be inescapable characteristics of international life” (276). As such, the key balancing global power lay in practicing “mutual restraint” in the area of foreign policy, which, given limited economic and political resources, would require U.S. leaders to differentiate between “peripheral” and “vital” national interests (276). Doing this, Nixon believed, was both economic and sufficient to advance the U.S. national security interest of remaining the world’s strongest industrial-power center.