Massive Retaliation was a term created by President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles on 12 January 1954. On that day , Dulles gave a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Although Eisenhower was a military solider, he really hated war. In the contrast, his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was really like to fight. He gave a speech and annuanced that “any Soviet attack on American ally would be countered by a nuclear assault on the Soviet Union” ( Eric Foner,891).
Massive retaliation was a powder-flag of any conflicts beteween Soviet and America. It could bring a nuclear war possiblely at any time and destory the Soviet Union and the Unite States. The impact of massive retaliation was very lasting and widerspread. Citizens were extremely scared by possible impending nuclear war. This affected American and Soviet Union’s daily lives. American government created many programs, such as building underground bomb shelters and school drills. The action of government made whole nation more scared. I personally think massive retaliation not only affect American economy, but also influence the politic stragety of America.
Massive Retaliation is a bad policy raised by Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. It may be good at the time of Cold War, which could deter former Soviet Union. However, from a long term perspective, the Massive Retaliation accelerated an arms race between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Especially, they accelerated to make nuclear weapons and deployed these weapons aiming at each other. Even China successfully detonated its first atomic bomb in October, 1964. Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 became the biggest threat to the U.S. The ensuing crisis ranks with the Berlin Blockade as one of the major confrontations of the Cold War and is generally regarded as the moment in which the Cold War came closest to turning into a nuclear conflict.
These arms races had never stopped, till in 1980s when Reagan came to office, the U.S. initiated a negotiation with the former Soviet Union to disarm offensive and tactical weapons. It turned out that the threat of Massive Retaliation could not prevent limited challenges. It was not an effective foreign policy tool to deal with everyday problems.