The Containment Policy was designed in 1947 to stop the spread of Communism.
The US feared that the Soviet Union would try and control more and more governments and turn them to Communism. Since the US is Capitalist, its economic enemy is Communism. The US did not, however, want to turn governments that were already Communist into Capitalist because, of course, this is Cold War, and there is no direct fighting.
Another way the US tried to stop the spread of Communism was with the Truman Doctrine. This said that the US will support any country fighting Communism. This was applied when congress authorized 400 million dollars to help Greece and Turkey in resisting Communism. Thankfully, it worked.
The US also had the Marshall Plan. This was to give aid to all European countries to help with the rebuilding of their economies after World War II. This allowed the countries to grow and prosper more, which helped to lower the number of lower class people. Since Communism relied on the support of the poor peasants for it to take over, this was a sneaky way for the US to stop Communism from spreading farther than it already had.
The US also had the Marshall Plan. This was to give aid to all European countries to help with the rebuilding of their economies after World War II. This allowed the countries to grow and prosper more, which helped to lower the number of lower class people. Since Communism relied on the support of the poor peasants for it to take over, this was a sneaky way for the US to stop Communism from spreading farther than it already had.
This event was important to the Cold War because the US was fighting the USSR in the sense that they were preventing the USSR from spreading their economic strategies, but they never actually fought each other in a battle.