The United States strategy of “containment” was put to the test following the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe that gave rise to the Cold War. North Korea or the DPRK under the direction of the Soviet Union invaded the Republic of Korea in June 1950. Ironically, the State Department author of the “containment” strategy–Mr. George Kennan– opposed Presidents Truman’s’ commitment of American troops to the Korean conflict although Truman was implementing the very policy of containment that Kennan had proposed in 1946 when he warned of continued Soviet aggression.
Two decades later in 1971, President Nixon initiated a policy of détente and peaceful coexistence with the USSR, and then a year later signed an ABM treaty with the USSR to ban missile defenses while agreeing in the SALT I treaty with the Soviets to regulate the expansion of the country’s respective nuclear arsenals. Through three administrations—under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter—the US policy was one of seeking growth in trade, investment, and energy with the USSR, under the assumption that the Soviets might be as a result less aggressive in their foreign policy.
For the decade prior to the 1982 formal change in US policy, the Soviets secured through trade and theft sufficient computer and other high technology advances from the West to close a 14-year gap to 3 years. The Soviets also thought the worldwide correlation of military forces was entirely on their side. At the same time, the Soviets undertook a rhetorical “peace offensive” , including a “nuclear freeze”, aimed at keeping the American Pershing missiles out of Europe, while the Soviets were deploying thousands of their own medium range SS-20 nuclear missiles in Europe and Asia.
It was thus in that context that the Reagan administration adopted a new seven-fold plan:
(1) support internal disruptions in the Soviet empire especially in Poland;
(2) promote freedom within the third world especially in Soviet client states;
