Domino theory Domino theory The domino theory was a theory prominent from the 1950s to the 1980s that posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the theory during an April 7, 1954, news conference, when referring to communism in Indochina: In 1945, the Soviet Union brought most of the countries of eastern Europe and Central
Historiography of the Cold War use nuclear weapons to stop Soviet expansion, though they failed to do so. New Left historians Joyce and Gabriel Kolko's "The Limits of Power: The World and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1945–1954" (1972) has also received considerable attention in the historiography on the Cold War. The Kolkos argued American policy was both reflexively anticommunist and counterrevolutionary. The United States was fighting not necessarily Soviet influence, but also any form of challenge to the American economic and political prerogatives through covert or military means. In this sense, the Cold War is less a story of rivalry between two blocs, but more a