The idea of containment as a U.S. policy started in 1946 when George Kennan telegramed the Truman Administration explaining that the Soviets can not be dealt with as a normal government. The Soviets idea of communism is expanding throughout different parts of the world and it must be contained and therefore started the containment policy. Ultimately, the United States didn’t want the “domino effect” where more and more countries would be reeled into communism.
I think if the United States and other countries did not act out to prevent the growth of communism, most of the world would be in a communistic government. Who knows, United States may have turned into communism as well and life for everyone would be much different.
The cause of the containment policy was clearly the spread of communism. As Nelson mentioned in his post, the spread of communism had become threatening. With the fall of China to communism, it was only a matter of time for other countries to follow. As a result The Truman Administration issued the containment policy to slow down or to eliminate the “domino effect” that Nelson had pointed out. This was a turning point in the Cold War as it posed a possible solution to protect the idea of freedom in the world.
I agree with Wong and Nelson, that this can easily be said to be a turning point in the Cold War. The United States did try and contain communism, and it worked to an extent. We even know that America went as far as going to war with Vietnam, in fear that if Vietnam became communist then many other countries would soon follow. This containment also allowed the rest of the world to get involved, or at least aware of the spread of communism. The effect of this containment is still seen today, as more and more countries continue to become democracies, and the USSR no longer exists.
The act of communism was a major cause to the containment policy. I agree that there would be a much more different way of living for a lot of individuals if this was not contained from spreading around to other countries. The idea of one country taking over many in the sense that it would change the way it is run is something life changing to all. Americas choice to go to war with other countries to contain it was a big decision since war is something a lot of people want to avoid. However, in this case it seemed to work out accordingly for the U.S. and other countries around the world who got involved.
This cartoon is exactly what Dr. Strangelove was about. I think the US and Soviet Union was doing the exact same thing. The Us was trtying to spread their form of government as was the Soviet Union.
As Jonathan has said, this is a turning point to the Cold War as the United States tried to contain the spread of communism. This became a possible solution in fighting communism.