FROM THE POLICY OF CONTAINMENT TO

THE POLICY OF NEGOTIATION FROM POSITIONS OF STRENGTH:

THE NSC 48/2

The U.S. nuclear monopoly lasted four years. During this period, the United States was

able to diplomatically contain its communist enemy – the Soviet Union – with the veiled

threat of razing it to the ground. However, in 1949, that monopoly ended. The wider world

began to adopt much more confrontational and militaristic positions. Both the triumph of

the community revolution in China and the Soviet Union’s detonation of its first nuclear

bomb, altered the global balance of power. The relative military parity between the United

States and the Soviet Union forced a shift in Washington's foreign policy.

By early 1950, U.S. President Henry Truman had become convinced that George Kennan’s

policy of containment developed four years earlier had become obsolete1. The

responsibility of designing a new foreign policy plan then fell to the newly created

National Security Council2 (NSC), then headed by Paul Nitze. The Council published NSC

Report No. 48/23 which expanded the Cold War focus to include a new U.S. strategy for

Asia. The document, of great historical value, shows the U.S. transition away from

traditional seamless diplomacy to a new diplomacy with defensive overtones. The

American abandonment of Kennan's containment policy was complete.

1
Kennan's vision of containment is summarized in the "long telegram" he sent to Washington on February 22, 1946.
2
The National Security Council was established by the National Security Act of 1947 (PL 235 – 61 Stat. 496; U.S.C. 402),
amended by the National Security Act Amendments of 1949 (63 Stat. 579; 50 U.S.C. 401 et seq.).
https://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/
3
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 240.

1
 The paper sheds light on Nitze's position, which in its fundamentals was not that different

from Kennan’s. Both believed in Moscow’s inherently expansive nature. Kennan had

already warned that the Soviet Union was developing a "far flung apparatus for exertion of

its influence in other countries''4 and Report 48/2 complements his view. The report

stressed the American need to eliminate the USSR’s influence in Asia in order to avoid

future threats to the U.S. security zone.5 Moreover, both considered that direct

confrontations between the two powers would be, in Kennan's words, "disastrous"6. Report

48/2, while encouraging destabilization of the Soviet regime, advocated doing so "while

scrupulously avoiding the appearance of intervention".7

Where the two figures differed, then, was in their prediction of the Soviet pace of

expansion in the future: Kennan believed it would be moderate while Nitze believed it

would be frantic. Consequently, they also differed on how to deal with such expansion:

Kennan favored diplomatic action, backed by military intervention only when necessary,

while in contrast Nitze advocated for an arms race. He argued for the U.S. to maintain and

extend military superiority at all costs "to prevent further encroachment by communism".8

The new "Nitzesian" phase marked the progressive militarization of the Truman Doctrine

as opposed to more diplomatic options. The hardening of U.S. policy reflected in

Document 48/2 calls attention to several issues.

4
George Kennan, Long Telegram (Moscow, 1946)
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm
5
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 240.
6
George Kennan, Long Telegram (Moscow, 1946)
7
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 243.
8
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 240.

2
 To begin with, the United States breaks definitively with the Wilsonian tradition of

“spheres of power.” The government instead adopts the strategy of "exerting influence"

over foreign nations "to promote its own national interests".9 The document calls for

improving the U.S. position "with respect to Japan, the Ryukyus and the Philippines"10 and

pledges to maintain the internal security of these "selected" non-Communist Asian nations.

To maintain that security, the document advocates for the creation of a military

organization among the non-Communist Asian nations. Similar to the structure of NATO,

such an organization would advance a policy goal that Franklin Roosevelt had rejected

during the peace negotiations of World War, where he fought fervently for China's

membership in the UN Security Council.11 The new organization would require a

willingness to assist such associations "if invited" and to "carry out their purposes on such

terms as are in our [U.S.] interest".12

In addition, NSC-48/2 also recommended dispensing 75 million in aid to non-Communist

governments "in the general area of China," including then-French Indochina.13 This

significant increase in military spending made clear, once again, the U.S. preference for

negotiation from a position of increasing military and political strength. For example,

NSC-48/2 argues that although Formosa (now Taiwan), was of strategic importance to the

9
ibid.
10
ibid.
11
In the very first official meeting between Roosevelt and Stalin, Roosevelt whipped up a sheet of paper and sketched out
for Stalin his plans for the post world order. In one of them it was written: “4 policemen”. Roosevelt said to Stalin that the 4
policemen had to be Soviet Union, China, England and the USA.
Erez Manela, “Remaking world order… again”, Harvard Extension School, October 11th, 2022. Video:
https://matterhorn.dce.harvard.edu/engage/player/watch.html?id=37eb1082-acba-1381-d1af-106581052bc7
12
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 241.
13
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 243.

3
 United States; however, strategic importance alone did not alone justify any defensive

response from the military.14

The paper thus summarizes the state of the polarized world order in 1950 with the U.S. and

USSR at opposite poles. The USSR was guided by an expansionist faith intended to

impose its absolute authority on the world. The conflict was developing within the shadow

of a nuclear arms race that threatened the entire world. Facing that reality, the American

foreign policy advocated active interventionism supported by overwhelming military

power. In conclusion, the paper argues that the free world must develop a successful

political and economic system always backed by strong military power.

In general terms, then, Report 48/2 led to a reformulation of Kennan's notion of

containment. Containment broadened its scope to include the development of a military

force capable of dealing with hypothetical aggression. American anxieties skyrocketed on

June 25th 1950, when North Korean soldiers invaded South Korea. Everything seemed to

indicate to the Americans that the communists, equipped with the atomic bomb, would put

their expansionist ideal into practice through increasing aggressiveness. Thus it was that

NSC-48/2 went from paper to practice, as the Cold War heated up in one part of the world

and the global conflict began an escalation that no one knew where it would end.

14
Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Vol II: Since 1914, 7th ed.
(Wadsworth, 2010), 243.