Containment

The US's containment strategy for stopping the spread of Communism during the Cold War seemed to be a big part of the class, seeing as Mr. Stewart made us repeat it over and over. However, containment was never the best strategy during the Cold War, seeing as we lost close to 1 million troops in Vietnam, had to draw out a stalemate in Korea (and let Mao get praise for "winning" the skirmish), and almost came to nuclear war with the USSR. Basically containment was based on the idea of standing up to Communism wherever it seemed to sprout up. This sounds good on paper, but in reality, you cant win a war without advancing and eradicating the enemy. If you take a look at Vietnam, the US was in a war that was essentially pointless. However, containment did do some good for the world, seeing as the Berlin Airlift kept thousands of capitalistic people alive and allowed the US to gain a sense of authority and aid that smaller countries could run to in time of need. Personally, I think containment was a bunk idea for a strategy.