The+Domino+Effect

=**The Domino Theory**=

The "domino theory" was a theory that determined much of the American foreign policy during the Cold War. President Eisenhower capitulated the theory in 1954 with these words:

//"You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences."//

In effect, the theory caused American foreign policymakers to reacts very forcefully to each communist insurrection because they had the fear that should one nation fall under the sway of communism, it would only be a matter of time before its neighbors collapsed too. This, as a result, morphed into the George Kennan's "containment" policy. The focus of containment was to counteract the domino theory by surrounding, or containing, communist countries with strong capitalist nations.