Containment Policy

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Containment policy

The containment policy served as the foundation of America’s interaction with the world, providing continuity between nine administrations. To be effectively associated with the containment policy, it America was required to break all ties with all its traditional ties that it had created before (Van Apeldoorn& De Graaff, 2014). Although the method that was to be applied in the containment by the national security strategy presented conflict ideas with those from different administration, the suggested containment policy was still applied. For the first time, America leveled her national power to align the long-term globe destiny (Hook & Spanier, 2015). As a result of the well-applied strategy, US became a victor of the cold war having achieved its goals of national objective, of eliminating security threat and regulating communism. All the attained achievement during this period shaped the role it played in regulating its foreign policy.

Throughout its history, America has focused on the actual situation, and it has not been looking at the consequences that it might face in the future. The push for containment, which required a break from what it had experienced in that past, was the increasing level of insecurity from the international environment. The main issues that America was seeking to address were the Soviet attainment of nuclear capability, Central Europe brutal suppression, and the communist victory in China (Hook & Spanier, 2015). With the implementation of NSC-68 and the announcement of the Truman Doctrine, America reshapes its relationship with the world. Its major national interest was increased to include the universal application of its value, while the issue of citizen-soldier changed into a national security state. Although the success issue of American containment was faced by many challenges, it is now being considered as a matter of the past.

The war on terror was also the main agenda of the post-cold war American policy. It was mainly applied to an international military campaign that was begun by the US and the UK with the support of other countries. Their official purpose was to eliminate militant organizations like the al-Qaeda (Van Apeldoorn& De Graaff, 2014). The strategy was first applied by U.S president George Bush. the international military campaign against terror group has since then been used denote a global, political, military and ideological struggle targeting organizations being considered as being terrorist and regimes that are providing support to them

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the international environment is changing from bipolar to a multipolar world. The situation of multi-polar that the United States placed its self can be considered as a part of its achievement. However, the emergence of other superpower countries is complicating the system of emerging and declining states; it is setting an environment that has high-security instability (Van Apeldoorn& De Graaff, 2014). The combination of this environment with the economic interdependence, the development of lethal technologies, the mismatch of resources between developing nation and the United States, the growth of illegal non-state actors is presenting a big danger to the United States that what was being presented by the communist societies. It is therefore clear that the world would be a safer place with the involvement of the United States than without (Hook & Spanier, 2015). It should also be noted that the engagement of the United States in world’s activities should not be viewed as an issue of white supremacy. The main agenda of the US engagement in these activities is the need to shape an environment whose instability is unprecedented.

References

Hook, S. W., & Spanier, J. (2015). American foreign policy since World War II. Cq Press.

Van Apeldoorn, B., & De Graaff, N. (2014). Corporate elite networks and US post-Cold War grand strategy from Clinton to Obama. European Journal of International Relations, 20(1), 29-55.