The American containment policy was a Cold War-era attempt to halt the spread of communism and Soviet influence throughout the global community.

The containment policy, created by George F. Kennan in 1947, feared a domino effect as communism began to spread. The first nation to formally adopt communism was the Soviet Union in 1917, following the success of a fervent revolution begun in 1905 by the Bolsheviks, a communist group led by Vladimir Lenin. Their success encouraged similar movements elsewhere and inspired the 1927 Chinese Civil War. This, too, culminated in communist victory. By 1949, Mao Zedong had become the head of the newly formed Chinese Communist Party. Fearing that more countries in this region would fall to communist influence, the US implemented Kennan's containment policy as a means of stalling and isolating communist expansionism.

Two famous examples of containment policy in action were the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1955-1975). In both situations, the US involved itself in ongoing regional conflicts in an attempt to forestall communist influence. Despite the scale of military investment in both regions, US involvement did not permanently halt the spread of communism, nor did it help the local governments thrive.

In Korea, the nation was divided in half as a result of the spread of communism and ensuing Western interference. On the 38th parallel, Korea was divided between North Korea, which is still a communist country today, and South Korea, a democratic country aligned with the western world. Despite South Korea's success, the split in the country led to dramatically different living situations for North and South Koreans, tearing apart families apart and leading to a large cultural rift between a once-unified nation.

Vietnam, like North Korea, also remains a communist state despite heavy American intervention. The Vietnam War is widely regarded as a failure for Western democracy, as our involvement failed to stop the spread of communist at the expense of over 58,000 American lives and over 3 million lives in total.