Strategies of Containment: A Critical
Appraisal of American National
Security Policy during the Cold War
by John Lewis Gaddis
An Astute Study Of American Foreign Policy In The Nuclear Age
When Strategies of Containment was first published, the Soviet Union was
still a superpower, Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, and
the Berlin Wall was still standing. This updated edition of Gaddis classic
carries the history of containment through the end of the Cold War.
Beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelts postwar plans, Gaddis provides a
thorough critical analysis of George F. Kennans original strategy of
containment, NSC-68, The Eisenhower-Dulles New Look, the Kennedy-
Johnson flexible response strategy, the Nixon-Kissenger strategy of
detente, and now a comprehensive assessment of how Reagan-- and
Gorbechev-- completed the process of containment, thereby bringing the
Cold War to an end. He concludes, provocatively, that Reagan more

effectively than any other Cold War president drew upon the strengths of
both approaches while avoiding their weaknesses. A must-read for anyone
interested in Cold War history, grand strategy, and the origins of the post-
Cold War world.
Personal Review: Strategies of Containment: A Critical
Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold
War by John Lewis Gaddis
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American
military affairs. John Lewis Gaddis expertly accomplished the purpose of
his book, which was to conduct a historical examination of how George
Kennan's strategy of "containment" helped to shape America's foreign
policy during the Cold War. Kennan's 8,000-word Long Telegram, which
he sent while serving as a junior diplomat from the American Embassy in
Moscow in 1946, recommended a new diplomatic strategy of containment
of the Soviet Union from spreading communism throughout the world. It
would have been helpful if Gaddis included Kennan's telegram in the book.
Gaddis' thesis was that all the Cold War presidents, from Truman through
Reagan, regardless of the geopolitical proclivities they held upon entering
office, essentially alternated between using two containment policies;
"asymmetrical containment," and "symmetrical containment".
Asymmetrical containment recognized the realism that America had limited
economic resources; thus, administrations that relied on it would have to
pick carefully when and where they would respond to Soviet aggression.
President Eisenhower used the asymmetrical containment strategy in his
"New Look" foreign policy, which relied on the economy of scale in trading
military manpower for nuclear weapons and thus containing Soviet
aggression through the threat of a massive nuclear retaliation. The Nixon-
Ford détente strategy, which was also asymmetrical in scope, relied on two
important factors to try to gain success. First, Nixon's opening relations
with China was a policy of "triangulation," which afforded the U.S. to use
long-standing antagonisms between the Soviets and the Chinese to force
the Soviets to agree to strategic arms limitations. Secondly, détente
introduced "linkage;" a carrot and stick approach of using economic
incentives to modify Soviet behavior around the globe. Gaddis found that
although détente succeeded at first in tipping the balance of power towards
America, it could not be sustained long, "...because it required insulating
the policy-making process from those who by law, tradition, or operational
necessity had come to have influence over it" (341).
Symmetrical containment was used by the Truman administration,
embodied in the National Security Council-68 document which shaped
Truman's Korea policy, the "flexible response" policy used by the Kennedy-
Johnson administrations, and by the Reagan administration. Gaddis
pointed out that the symmetrical containment policy was used to meet
Soviet aggression wherever and whenever it arose. Symmetrical
containment was a "double-edged sword." Although it provided presidents
the luxury of a multitude of responses without escalating to nuclear war, it

forced them to finance a military that could respond to all contingencies,
making it a budget buster. Gaddis aptly pointed out that Reagan rushed at
break neck speed to enlarge America's military because he believed that
the Soviet economy and its political leadership were on the brink of
collapse. Thus, Gaddis found, "Reagan's objective was straightforward, if
daunting: to prepare the way for a new kind of Soviet leader by pushing the
old Soviet system to the breaking point" (354). Gaddis' examination of the
Reagan administration's policies really drove home the fact that personal
leadership on both sides is what decided success and failure in
containment policy during the Cold War. "It was these qualities, together
with the reforms Gorbachev brought about within the Soviet Union, that
allowed both leaders to achieve the results Kennan had hoped for from the
strategy of containment when, four decades earlier, he first proposed it"
(377).
Recommended reading for anyone interested in political science, military
history, and American history.
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