ABSTRACT

The Cold War was born in the mid-1940s: terminal illness took hold in 1989 and it expired in December 1991 along with the Soviet Union. But, what caused it: historical enmity, economic rivalry, an ideological crusade, a geopolitical power struggle, or a complex mixture of all four? And once it arrived, how was it to be dealt with? The US answer of containment strategy was as simplistic as it was amorphous and confronted American policy-makers throughout the Cold War with fundamental questions and terrible dilemmas. Did the best guarantee of international security lie in the threat of mass nuclear genocide? What were the limits of American power? What tools should be used to pursue containment? What, even, was the primary objective of containment: victory or managed coexistence?