US grand strategy during the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy derived, in the broadest sense, from the same, deep-seated fear: that the Soviet Union’s combination of implacable hostility, mounting military strength, and positive ideological appeal posed a fundamental — even existential — threat to US national security. The emergence of an equally hostile China as a military power in its own right deepened the perception they shared of an unusually menacing external environment. Eisenhower and Kennedy each accepted the basic goals of the containment strategy developed during the Harry S. Truman presidency, to be sure. But differing assessments about the precise nature and extent of the Communist threat, coupled with divergent judgments about how best to check it and what resources were available for the task, generated quite distinct tactical approaches to national security policy during the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations.

Long before he assumed the presidency, Dwight D. Eisenhower had been giving serious and sustained thought to questions of strategy. As a West Point cadet, he had imbibed the fundamental precepts of Carl von Clausewitz’s classic nineteenth-century treatise on warfare. Later, of course, he gained invaluable practical experience in the formulation and implementation of strategic plans as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe during World War II. One of Eisenhower’s deepest core beliefs held that national security encompassed much more than the physical defense of the homeland; it meant to him, in the broadest sense, protecting the nation’s basic values, its economic system, and its domestic institutions. In that respect, Eisenhower was formly convinced that the greatest threat to national security emanated less from the potential for military defeat than from excessive government spending; striking an appropriate balance between the cost of an adequate defense and the need to maintain a healthy, solvent economy constituted, accordingly, a crucial aspect of strategy.