Containment policy
Going back to the Eisenhower administration, there was a commitment to Cold War containment of Communism, which actually began in the Truman Administration with the containment policy conceived by George Kennan.
Kennan's policy came from what variously was called the "Long Telegram",[1] or, as the article appeared pseudonymously in Foreign Affairs, "The Sources of Soviet Power". Kennan's basic premise was that the Soviet ideology was based on a dialectic in which they were destined to win, so they would take a long view. While they would push for local victory, they would rarely treat confrontations as existential.
Successors
During the Cold War, opponents proposed a more "victory" strategy, one of the keys, for example, in the Truman-Macarthur confrontation. Nevertheless, Dwight D. Eisenhower, although this has become more obvious after more documents have been declassified, essentially kept the policy. Supporting the French in Indochina was limited in 1954, and tied to French support for NATO and other containment in Europe.
Under John F. Kennedy, more aggressive anticommunism, as with Cuba, came into being, although he stayed more limited, as with Laos, than did Lyndon B. Johnson.
A variety of analysts suggest post-Cold War alternatives. [2]
New applications
Andrew Bacevich has proposed containment of radical Islamism.