The Word Containment can be traced back to 1947 when a top American diplomat at the American Embassy in Moscow and the US adviser on Soviet relations George Keenan cabled his analysis to the US Home dept. He described the Russian interest in propagating Communism as a means to expand their hold over more countries. He put forth a theory of long, patient, but firm and vigilant containment of Russia's expansive tendency.
The Truman doctrine of 1947 promising help to Greece and Turkey militarily since the Soviets were pressing for territorial concessions and building of Naval bases can be seen as the first measure of the US foreign policy of Containment.This policy also called for extensive economic aid to the war-torn Western Europe.
In 1949 on seeing the East-European countries joining the Soviet bloc led to the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)with 11 counties as a step towards collective security. In 1950 the US National Security Council (NSC) reviewed the foreign and defense policies which came to be known as the NSC-68. It committed that the US would assist all Allied nations anywhere in the World.
This policy that started in the 40s and 50s would later go on to the US intervention in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Central America and the East-European countries in the 90s which were pockets of Communist influence largely due to the Soviet bloc's Communist expansion .
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