WHAT IS FOREIGN POLICY?| 473During this period the United States implemented several measures to build
and strengthen alliances against the Soviet threat. The fi rst was the Marshall
Plan, a series of aid and development programs enacted in the late 1940s to restore
the economies of Western European countries that had been devastated during
World War II.^17 In addition, the United States was instrumental in the formation
of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as other interna-
tional trade agreements. (See later discussion.)
The United States also formed alliances with other countries, including the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. The goal of these alli-
ances and organizations was collective security, based on the principle that “an
attack against one is an attack against all.”^18 The aim was to deter Soviet attacks
throughout the world by formalizing America’s commitment to defend its allies.
Of course, the Soviets formed their own alliances, most notably the Warsaw Pact
with nations in Eastern Europe.^19
On another front the United States was behind the 1945 creation of the United
Nations (UN), an international organization with the goal of preventing wars by
facilitating negotiations between combatants and, if necessary, by sending mili-
tary forces from member states to stop confl icts. Other aspects of the UN’s role
have included administering relief eff orts for refugees, undertaking development
eff orts, codifying international law, and publicizing and condemning human
rights violations.
Clearly, the goal of containment infl uenced every aspect of American foreign
policy after World War II.^20 America maintained large military forces, beginning
its fi rst peacetime draft in the 1950s and building up a large store of nuclear weap-
ons. These weapons were intended to deter war with the Soviet Union through the
threat of mutually assured destruction—the idea that even if the Soviet Union
unleashed an all-out nuclear assault on the United States, enough American weap-
ons would remain intact to deliver a similarly devastating counterattack. As part
of this eff ort, throughout much of the mid-twentieth century the United States
stationed hundreds of thousands of troops in Western Europe and elsewhere to
deter the Soviet threat. Yet in 1962 war nearly broke out during the Cuban Missile
Crisis, when the Soviets attempted to station nuclear missiles in Cuba—within
striking range of the United States. However, the issue was defused by a Soviet
withdrawal in the face of an American naval blockade of Cuba and a secret Ameri-
can promise to withdraw similar missiles from Turkey in return.
In the early 1960s America also became involved in the confl ict in Vietnam,
believing that North Vietnam’s drive to take over South Vietnam was part of the
Soviet Union’s plan for world domination.^21 A popular theory at the time held that
if the United States did not prevent the fall of South Vietnam, the next step would
be a Soviet-backed confl ict in the Philippines, in Australia, or in the territory of
some other American ally. However, the initial confl ict between North and South
Vietnam was a civil war rather than an international event.^22 Though the North
Vietnamese accepted Soviet support, they did not take orders from the Soviets.
Beginning in the early 1970s President Richard Nixon and his national secu-
rity adviser, Henry Kissinger, began a process of détente with the Soviet Union.
This involved a series of negotiations and cultural exchanges designed to reduce
tensions and promote cooperation.^23 These eff orts culminated in the 1972 Strate-
gic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which limited the growth of U.S. and Soviet
missile forces.^24
At the same time, the Arab nations’ embargo prohibiting oil shipments to West-
ern nations after the 1973 Arab–Israeli war was a reminder that containment of
the Soviet Union could not be America’s only foreign policy priority. Tensions over
mutually assured destruction
The idea that two nations that
possess large stores of nuclear
weapons— like the United States
and the Soviet Union during the Cold
War— would both be annihilated in
any nuclear exchange, thus making
it unlikely that either country would
launch a fi rst attack.détente An approach to foreign
policy in which cultural exchanges
and negotiations are used to reduce
tensions between rival nations, such
as between the United States and
the Soviet Union during the 1970s.