new look policy

During the rise of The Cold War President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent the majority of his second term dealing with foreign policy. He partially supported the policy of containment and the need to stop advances of communism. Along with president Eisenhower was Secretary of State John Foster Dulles who significantly influenced U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War. He was an advocate for a “new look” to threaten the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China. Although he was a strong anti-communist Dulles thought Truman’s policy of containment was too passive. His new look policy declared that if the communist powers pushed the United States close to war, the communist powers would have to reconsider due to The United States nuclear superiority (Newman). “Dulles also advocated a policy of brinksmanship in which the U.S. would “undertake certain efforts to prevent further significant expansion of Soviet power, even at the risk of war” (“Did Eisenhower New Look…”).

Eisenhower wanted to change American strategic policy in a way that would not waste so much money through high taxes on Truman’s military buildup (“Strategic Studies Institute”). Truman’s strategy hurt the economy and to an extent would not fulfill its promises of containment. President Eisenhower’s solution was the policy of “New Look” which would still maintain the same goal of helping allies but through defending them with nuclear weapons as opposed to army forces. The policy was fully implemented on January 12, 1954 by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. He stated that,

Now the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff can shape our military establishment to fit what is our policy, instead of having ...

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...r war. The purpose of the policy was to prevent the Cold War and maintain a healthy economy by spending less money on land forces and increase on air forces and nuclear production. In addition the nuclear weapons would become the vital threat “Massive Retaliation” to the Soviet Union and Republic of China. Massive retaliation would become a way for the United States to maintain and protect allies and also to gain new friendships. The policy was able to save money and at the same time keep the nuclear threat proportional to what it would have been with a superior army. Strategies like brinkmanship were used to convince the enemy of the United States’ willingness to use the nuclear weapons. However the policy was risky and inflexible to the communist powers that caught up to America’s massive retaliation, which left America in a less than safe state after the policy.