The United States foreign policy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, from 1953 to 1961, focused on the Cold War with the Soviet Union and its satellites. The United States built up a stockpile of nuclear weapons and nuclear delivery systems to deter military threats and save money while cutting back on expensive Army combat units. A major uprising broke out in Hungary in 1956; the Eisenhower administration did not become directly involved, but condemned the military invasion by the Soviet Union. Eisenhower sought to reach a nuclear test ban treaty with the Soviet Union, but following the 1960 U-2 incident the Kremlin canceled a scheduled summit in Paris.

As he promised, Eisenhower quickly ended the fighting in Korea, leaving it divided North and South. The U.S. has kept major forces there ever since to deter North Korea. In 1954, he played a key role in the Senate's defeat of the Bricker Amendment, which would have limited the president's treaty making power and ability to enter into executive agreements with foreign leaders. The Eisenhower administration used propaganda and covert action extensively, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) supported two military coups: the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. The administration did not approve the partition of Vietnam at the 1954 Geneva Conference, and directed economic and military aid and advice to South Vietnam. Washington led the establishment of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization as an alliance of anti-Communist states in Southeast Asia. It ended two crises with China over Taiwan.

In 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, sparking the Suez Crisis, in which a coalition of France, Britain, and Israel attacked Egypt. Concerned about the economic and political impacts of the invasion, Eisenhower had warned the three against any such action. When they invaded anyway he used heavy financial and diplomatic pressures to force a withdrawal. In the aftermath of the crisis, Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine, under which any country in the Middle East could request American economic assistance or aid from American military forces.

The Cuban Revolution broke out during Eisenhower's second term, resulting in the replacement of pro-U.S. military dictator Fulgencio Batista with Fidel Castro. In response to the revolution, the Eisenhower administration broke ties with Cuba and Eisenhower approved a CIA operation to carry out a campaign of terrorist attacks and sabotage, kill civilians, and cause economic damage. The CIA also trained and commanded pilots to bomb civilian airfields. The CIA began preparations for an invasion of Cuba by Cuban expatriates, ultimately resulting in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion after Eisenhower left office.

Cold War

Eisenhower's 1952 candidacy was motivated in large part by his opposition to Taft's isolationist views; he did not share Taft's concerns regarding U.S. involvement in collective security and international trade, the latter of which was embodied by the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. After Eisenhower secured the 1952 nomination, he and Taft agreed that Taft would handle domestic issues in his role as Senate GOP leader and Eisenhower would control foreign policy.Jean Edward Smith, Eisenhower in War and Peace (2012) p. 531.

The Cold War dominated international politics in the 1950s. As both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, any conflict presented the risk of escalation into nuclear warfare. Eisenhower continued the basic Truman administration policy of containment of Soviet expansion and the strengthening of the economies of Western Europe. Eisenhower's overall Cold War policy was described by NSC174, which held that the rollback of Soviet influence was a long-term goal, but that the United States would not provoke war with the Soviet Union. He planned for the full mobilization of the country to counter Soviet power, and emphasized making a "public effort to explain to the American people why such a militaristic mobilization of their society was needed."

After Joseph Stalin died in March 1953, Georgy Malenkov took leadership of the Soviet Union. Malenkov proposed a "peaceful coexistence" with the West, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill proposed a summit of the world leaders. Fearing that the summit would delay the rearmament of West Germany, and skeptical of Malenkov's intentions and ability to stay in power, the Eisenhower administration nixed the summit idea. In April 1953, Eisenhower delivered his "Chance for Peace speech", in which he called for an armistice in Korea, free elections to re-unify Germany, the "full independence" of Eastern European nations, and United Nations control of atomic energy. Though well received in the West, the Soviet leadership viewed Eisenhower's speech as little more than propaganda. In 1954, a more confrontational leader, Nikita Khrushchev, took charge in the Soviet Union. Eisenhower became increasingly skeptical of the possibility of cooperation with the Soviet Union after it refused to support his Atoms for Peace proposal, which called for the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the creation of nuclear power plants.

National security policy

Eisenhower unveiled the New Look, his first national security policy, on October 30, 1953. It reflected his concern for balancing the Cold War military commitments of the United States with the nation's financial resources. The policy emphasized reliance on strategic nuclear weapons, rather than much more expensive conventional military power. His goal was to deter both conventional and nuclear military threats.Saki Dockrill, Eisenhower's New-Look National Security Policy, 1953–61 (1996). The U.S. military developed a strategy of nuclear deterrence based upon the triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Throughout his presidency, Eisenhower insisted on having plans to retaliate, fight, and win a nuclear war against the Soviets, although he hoped he would never feel forced to use such weapons.

As the ground war in Korea ended, Eisenhower sharply reduced the reliance on expensive Army divisions. Historian Saki Dockrill argues that his long-term strategy was to promote the collective security of NATO and other American allies, strengthen the Third World against Soviet pressures, avoid another Korea, and produce a climate that would slowly and steadily weaken Soviet power and influence. Dockrill points to Eisenhower's use of multiple assets against the Soviet Union:

End of the Korean War

During his campaign, Eisenhower said he would go to Korea to end the Korean War, which had broken out in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea. The U.S. had joined the war to prevent the fall of South Korea, later expanding the mission to include victory over the Communist regime in North Korea.James I. Matray, "Truman's Plan for Victory: National Self-Determination and the Thirty-Eighth Parallel Decision in Korea". Journal of American History 66.2 (1979): 314-333. online The intervention of Chinese forces in late 1950 led to a protracted stalemate around the 38th parallel with continuous casualties. ` Truman had begun peace talks in mid-1951, but the issue of North Korean and Chinese prisoners remained a sticking point. Over 40,000 prisoners from the two countries refused repatriation, but North Korea and China nonetheless demanded their return. Upon taking office, Eisenhower demanded a solution, warning China that he would use nuclear weapons if the war continued. China came to terms, and an armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, as the Korean Armistice Agreement. Historian Edward C. Keefer said that in accepting the American demands that POWs could refuse to return to their home country, "China and North Korea still swallowed the bitter pill, probably forced down in part by the atomic ultimatum."Edward C. Keefer, "President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the End of the Korean War" Diplomatic History (1986) 10#3: 267–289; quote follows footnote 33. Historian and government advisor McGeorge Bundy stated that while the threat to use nuclear weapons was not empty, neither did it ever reach the point of trying to obtain consent to their use from U.S. allies.

The armistice led to decades of uneasy peace between North Korea and South Korea. The United States and South Korea signed a defensive treaty in October 1953, and the U.S. continue to the present day to station thousands of soldiers in South Korea.

Covert actions

Eisenhower, while accepting the doctrine of containment, sought to counter the Soviet Union through more active means as detailed in the State-Defense report NSC 68. The Eisenhower administration and the Central Intelligence Agency used covert action to interfere with suspected communist governments abroad. An early use of covert action was against the elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Mosaddeq, resulting in the 1953 Iranian coup d'état. The CIA also instigated the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état by the local military that overthrew president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, whom U.S. officials viewed as too friendly toward the Soviet Union. Critics have produced conspiracy theories about the causal factors, but according to historian Stephen M. Streeter, CIA documents show the United Fruit Company (UFCO) played no major role in Eisenhower's decision, that the Eisenhower administration did not need to be forced into the action by any lobby groups, and that Soviet influence in Guatemala was minimal.

Eisenhower's covert operations were not limited to the Western Hemisphere. He also broke new ground in Africa when he ordered the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo following Lumumba's visit to the United States requesting assistance against Belgian violence and resistance to Congolese independence. This was the first time the United States had ordered the assassination of a foreign leader.

Streeter identifies three major interpretive perspectives, "Realist", "Revisionist", and "Post-revisionist": Realists, who concern themselves primarily with power politics, have generally blamed the Cold War on an aggressive, expansionist Soviet empire. Because realists believe that Arbenz was a Soviet puppet, they view his overthrow as the necessary rollback of communism in the Western Hemisphere. Revisionists, who place the majority of the blame for the Cold War on the United States, emphasize how Washington sought to expand overseas markets and promote foreign investment, especially in the Third World. Revisionists allege that because the State Department came to the rescue of the UFCO, the U.S. intervention in Guatemala represents a prime example of economic imperialism. Post-revisionists, a difficult group to define precisely, incorporate both strategic and economic factors in their interpretation of the Cold War. They tend to agree with revisionists on the issue of Soviet responsibility, but they are much more concerned with explaining the cultural and ideological influences that warped Washington's perception of the Communist threat. According to postrevisionists, the Eisenhower administration officials turned against Arbenz because they failed to grasp that he represented a nationalist rather than a communist.Stephen M. Streeter, Managing the Counterrevolution: The United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961 (Ohio University Press, 2000), pp. 7–9, 20.

Defeating the Bricker Amendment