From Containment to Collapse: The Cold War's Final Chapter

The Cyclical Nature of the Cold War

The course of the Cold War was cyclical, with both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. alternating between periods of assertion. In the first years after 1945, the U.S. quickly demobilized its wartime military forces. Stalin, however, rejected American blueprints for peace, exploited the temporarily favorable correlation of forces to impose Communist regimes on East-Central Europe, and maintained the military-industrial emphasis in Soviet central planning.

Initial U.S. Containment Strategy (1947-1953)

Soviet policy prompted the first American outpouring of energy between 1947 and 1953, when the strategy of containment and the policies to implement it emerged. These included:

• The Truman Doctrine
• The Marshall Plan
• NATO
• The Korean War
• A buildup in conventional and nuclear arms

Soviet Offensive and U.S. Response (1957-1968)

Khrushchev then launched a new Soviet offensive in 1957, hoping to transform Soviet triumphs in space and missile technology into gains in Berlin and the Third World. The U.S. responded from 1961 to 1968 under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson with another energetic campaign. This campaign ranged from the Apollo Moon program and a nuclear buildup to the Peace Corps and counterinsurgency operations, culminating in the Vietnam War, which brought economic distress and social disorder at home.

The Era of Détente (1969-1979)

After 1969, Presidents Nixon and Ford scaled back American commitments, withdrew from Vietnam, pursued arms control treaties, and fostered détente with the U.S.S.R. It was thus that the correlation of forces shifted in favor of the Soviet bloc, tempting the U.S.S.R. to extend its influence and power and allowing it to equal or surpass the U.S. in nuclear weapons.

Reagan's Assertion and Soviet Collapse (1980s)

After 1980, under President Reagan, the U.S. completed the cycle with a final, self-confident assertion of will. In May 1981, at Notre Dame University, Reagan predicted that the years ahead would be great ones for the cause of freedom and that Communism was "a sad chapter of human history about to end."

By this time, the Soviet economy was in dire straits. The Reagan administration recognized and sought to exploit this Soviet economic vulnerability. This economic warfare pushed the Soviet economy to the brink of collapse. Symptoms such as the growth of a black market, alcoholism, and a high abortion rate provoked protests, leadership changes, and ultimately, revolution.