THE CONSERVATIVE APPROACH TO THE CONTAINMENT OF COMMUNISM: FOREIGN POLICY VIEWS OF SENATOR ROBERT TAFT

The article deals with the views of Robert Taft, the leader of the conservative Republicans, on methods and forms of containment of the communist threat in the early stages of the Cold War. Taft represented the interpretation of communism as an ideological rather than a military threat to the United States. The politician however did not exclude completely the possibility of an armed attack by the Soviet Union, and he believed the US Air Force were the primary means of deterring the Soviets. Being a supporter of a tough policy in the Far East, Taft negatively evaluated large-scale military commitment of the United States (the creation of NATO, specifically) and was convinced that the United States should retain the freedom to choose their actions. The author supposes that Taft's approach should be interpreted more correctly as conservative globalism and unilateralism, not as new isolationism. It seems reasonable to use the term "conservative globalism" when speaking about the goals and priorities of the United States, and the term "unilateralism" when focusing on the methods of implementation of Washington's foreign policy.