page_title: Foreign interventions by the United States
section_title: Cold War
hierarchical_section_title: Foreign interventions by the United States / Cold War
caption_attribution_description: Español: El Presidente Aylwin junto al Gral. Pinochet y al Pdte. de U.S.A. George Bush.
context_page_description: The United States has been involved in a number of foreign interventions throughout its history. There have been two dominant schools of thought in the United States about foreign policy, namely interventionism and isolationism which either encourage or discourage foreign intervention respectively.
context_section_description: Following the Second World War, the U.S. helped form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 to resist communist expansion and supported resistance movements and dissidents in the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during a period known as the Cold War. One example is the counterespionage operations following the discovery of the Farewell Dossier which some argue contributed to the fall of the Soviet regime. After Joseph Stalin instituted the Berlin Blockade, the United States, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries began the massive "Berlin airlift", supplying West Berlin with up to 4,700 tons of daily necessities. U.S. Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen created "Operation Vittles", which supplied candy to German children. In May 1949, Stalin backed down and lifted the blockade. The U.S. spent billions to rebuild Europe and aid global development through programs such as the Marshall Plan.
  From 1950 to 1953, U.S. and UN forces fought communist Chinese and North Korean troops in the Korean War, which saw South Korea successfully defended from invasion. U.S. troops remained in South Korea to deter further conflict, as the war has not officially ended. President Harry Truman was unable to roll back the North Korean government due to Chinese intervention, but the goal of containment was achieved.
  During the Cold War, the U.S. frequently used the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for covert operations against governments considered unfriendly to U.S. interests. In 1949, under U.S. President Harry Truman, a coup overthrew an elected parliamentary government in Syria, which had delayed approving an oil pipeline requested by U.S. international business interests in that region. The exact role of the CIA in the coup is controversial, but it is clear that U.S. governmental officials, including at least one CIA officer, communicated with Husni al-Za'im, the coup's organizer, prior to the March 30 coup and were at least aware that it was being planned. Six weeks later, on May 16, Za'im approved the pipeline.
  In 1953, under U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, the CIA helped Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran remove the democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh (although supporters of U.S. policy claimed that Mossadegh had ended democracy through a rigged referendum).
  In 1954, the CIA launched Operation PBSuccess, which deposed the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz and ended the Guatemalan Revolution. The coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed dictators who ruled Guatemala. Guatemala subsequently plunged into a civil war that costed thousands of lives and ended all democratic expression for decades. The CIA armed an indigenous insurgency in order to oppose the invasion and subsequent control of Tibet by China and sponsored a failed revolt against Indonesian President Sukarno in 1958. As part of the Eisenhower Doctrine, the U.S. also deployed troops to Lebanon in Operation Blue Bat.
  Covert operations continued under President John F. Kennedy and his successors. In 1961, the CIA attempted to depose Cuban president Fidel Castro through the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The invasion was doomed when President Kennedy withdrew U.S. air support at the last minute. The CIA also considered assassinating Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba with poisoned toothpaste (although this plan was aborted). In 1961, the CIA supported the overthrow of Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic. After a period of instability, U.S. troops invaded the Dominican Republic in Operation Power Pack (April 1965) to prevent a Communist takeover. Without collaborators, a U.S. invasion against an army united with the people would have been difficult and costly in lives; in an optimistic estimate, the Pentagon believed that at least two full U.S. divisions were required to overcome the extensive armament the Dominican Republic had acquired as protection against a Haitian invasion.
  At the end of 
caption: Chilean General Augusto Pinochet with George H. W. Bush
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