Eisenhower tried his best to pursue his broader goal of containment while avoiding war. He himself acknowledged the amount of improvisation that went into his policymaking. Far from claiming that he followed a grand strategy in Asia, he admitted that America “threaded its way, with watchfulness and determination through narrow and dangerous waters between appeasement and global war.” To a great degree he managed to accomplish that balancing act. His successors, alas, did not.
