The Cold War and the Americas (1945–1981)

Pledge that the USA would give economic and military aid to any country resisting a communist takeover; basis of containment policy.

US Cold War strategy of stopping communism from spreading further, rather than trying to roll it back where it already existed.

Mutual-defence treaty among American states: an attack on one member was treated as an attack on all, tying Latin America into US-led containment.

US-led regional body coordinating anti-communist policy across the Americas and isolating governments seen as sympathetic to the USSR.

Senator Joseph McCarthy's unproven claims (from 1950) that communists had infiltrated US institutions; caused blacklists, job losses and a culture of suspicion.

Made politicians fear looking 'soft on communism', pushing US foreign policy toward tougher, less compromising anti-communist action abroad, including in Latin America.

To prove containment was real and active, avoid appearing weak, and act through the UN (Soviet boycott meant no Security Council veto).

General MacArthur wanted to escalate into China after pushing North Korea back; Truman, wanting a limited war, dismissed him in 1951 for insubordination.

Armistice signed July 1953; Korea remained divided near the 38th parallel; no formal peace treaty was ever signed.

Cold War strategy relying on nuclear deterrence ('massive retaliation') and covert CIA action instead of expensive conventional wars like Korea.

CIA-backed coup that overthrew President Jacobo Árbenz after his land reforms threatened the United Fruit Company; a textbook case of the New Look in action.

Old approach (Korea): large conventional army, high cost, open war. New Look (Guatemala): CIA covert action and nuclear deterrent, low cost, deniable.

The Cold War belief that if one country fell to communism, its neighbours would follow — it justified deep US involvement in Vietnam.

Gave President Johnson broad power to escalate US military action in Vietnam without a formal declaration of war.

Handing combat responsibility back to South Vietnamese forces while gradually withdrawing US troops from the war.

1975 — the fall of Saigon to North Vietnamese forces.

Canada did not send combat troops; PM Lester Pearson publicly criticised US bombing (1965), though Canada still supplied war materials and took in US draft resisters.

It became a symbol of US imperialism, fuelling student and left-wing protest movements and radicalising regional politics in the late 1960s.

A 10-year, $20-billion US aid programme for Latin American economic development and reform, aimed at reducing poverty so communism (as in Cuba) would not spread; it largely underdelivered.

Used covert CIA operations to destabilise elected Marxist president Salvador Allende, contributing to the 1973 military coup that installed dictator Augusto Pinochet.

The Panama Canal Treaty (1977), agreeing to transfer control of the Panama Canal to Panama by 1999, alongside a stated human rights foreign policy.

Kennedy used economic aid (Alliance for Progress), Nixon used covert force (Chile), and Carter used diplomacy and moral pressure (Panama Canal, human rights).

NATO (1949): founding member, tying Canadian defence to the Western bloc. NORAD (1958): joint US-Canada air-defence command against Soviet attack — both show deep military alignment with the US.

Canada recognised communist China in 1970, years before the US did, showing an independent diplomatic course despite close alignment with Washington elsewhere.