The devastation and challenges of World War II were tremendous. The U.S. faced severe and significant objectives that would define the future state of America and European countries. It was essential for the U.S. to oppose Communist expansion in Europe and Asia, so there were specific policies that addressed this aim, and evaluating their efficiency and success may provide valuable insights.
First, it is essential to discuss the policy of containment that was adopted by America and its allies. The purpose of this strategy was to prevent the spread of communism and respond to the Soviet Union’s moves to expand its influence in a number of countries by providing struggling nations with more funding (Corbett et al., 2014). It is possible to say that this policy was effective because the U.S. managed to protect several countries from being coerced into communism.
The second successful policy is the Marshall Plan aimed at several positive changes. The main idea behind this policy was to provide financial support to the struggling European nations, giving them $13 billion in economic aid (Corbett et al., 2014). The countries that received financial help were united and managed to undercut the political popularity of communism. The third relatively successful reform was the Vietnam conflict (“Domino theory,” 2018). In this war, South Vietnam and the U.S. acted against North Vietnam’s communist government (Corbett et al., 2014). Though the U.S. did not manage to protect South Vietnam from communist forces, its spread to the rest of Southeast Asia was blocked, and it is possible to consider this reform effective. Finally, one would state that the United States should not have feared international communist subversion during the Cold War era. The reason is that America’s strength allowed it to resist communist forces, and the fear could have undermined the nation’s confidence.
References
Corbett, P. S., Janssen, V., Lund, J. M., Pfannestiel, T., Waskiewicz, S., & Vickery, P. (2014). U.S. history. OpenStax.
Domino theory. (2018). History. Web.