Author: Mr Thomas F Berner
The role of George Kennan's Containment strategy in securing a U.S. victory in the Cold War has been overstated by both the right and the left. While its attributes render it an acceptable and honorable path to victory, Containment's efficacy is undermined by military and diplomatic conflict, which yielded a change in American foreign policy after 1968. What can more accurately be considered America's winning strategy is a three-part proposal by Major General John R. Deane, chief of the United States Military Liaison Mission to Moscow from 1943 to 1945. He asserted that active attempts to contain Soviet Communism around the globe would not be as potent as the system's inherent incompatibility with both world domination and Russian society.