containment policy
Limiting sphere strategy
Containment policy refers to a strategy of preventing the expansion of a hostile power or ideology, most famously the Cold War approach of limiting Soviet influence without direct military confrontation.
The policy accepts existing boundaries while blocking further spread: Containment policy shaped American foreign relations for four decades.
The term now applies to any strategy of restricting rather than eliminating a threat.
- Cold WarProlonged East-West standoff
- Iron CurtainCold War's political divide
- Berlin WallCold War partition
- deterrencePrevention via threatened consequences
- mutually assured destructionReciprocal nuclear annihilation threat
regional stability · buffer zones · Truman Doctrine · domino effect · balance of power · national security · iron fist · trade embargoes · Berlin Airlift · proxy wars · Marshall Plan · Cuban Missile Crisis · territorial disputes · Soviet Union · Soviet threat · red scare · brinkmanship · propaganda campaigns
- Cold WarBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, arms race, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
- American HegemonyMonroe Doctrine, manifest destiny, territorial expansion, interventionism, regime change
- Cold War economicsMarshall Plan, economic sanctions, trade embargo, arms race, economic warfare
- Cold War OriginsIron Curtain, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Blockade, Berlin Airlift
- Eisenhower EraDwight Eisenhower, Ike, Richard Nixon, Nixon, farewell address
- military defenseair defense, missile defense, coastal defense, homeland defense, radar station
containment policyappeasement
Satisfying demands to prevent conflict
rollback · regime change · capitulation · accommodation · preventive war
containment policydiplomatic engagement
Official contact between governments
rapprochement · normalization · open-door policy · integration · cooperation
containment policyexpansionism
Policy of territorial growth
imperial expansion · strategic retreat · retrenchment · withdrawal · non-interventionism