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that America must confront the Soviet Union; Michael J. Hogan described NSC-68 as:

"Perhaps more than any other document of the period, NSC-68 can claim to be the bible of American national security policy and the fullest statement to that point of the new ideology that guided American leaders. "

NSC-68 called for a massive increase in the military budget. A jump of 257 percent over the original estimate for the budget of 1950 declared the intentions of Truman's proactive and almost Keynesian approach to the Soviet threat. It was seen as many as at the start of the cold war but neo-realist Samuel F Wells stated that "it was not a dramatic departure " from the normal U.S foreign policy of the Second World War. This idea although true is deeply flawed, Truman was no longer in a war situation and by elevating this to a war footing by instigating an arms race by inflating the Soviet Union's threat with the use of a strong rhetoric was a "deeply Flawed policy ." Wells argued that NSC-68 made "essential to confront Russian totalitarianism with unanswerable force on every front because expansionism was the touchstone of the Soviet system. "

Using inflammatory remarks such as "to check and to roll back the Kremlin's drive for world domination " was different from the previous security guide, Keenan's X article in both its severity and also the credit it gave to the Soviet Union. Lloyd Gardner, a post post-revisionist saw this as an exaggeration of the Soviet threat and that the idea of NSC-68 was to "cast one's enemies outside civilized behavior. " For an administration that founded the National Security Council its approach appeared to merely instigate the Soviet Union and endanger America more than it secured it. Its use of phrases like "Soviet surrogate forces " promoted a more aggressive approach but provided no guarantees on fiscal feasibility. As Eisenhower took office in 1953 Defence expenditure had tripled and personnel had doubled to over three and a half million.

Eisenhower's policy appeared to take America in a new direction. His approach was controversial but the expertise and reputation he had accumulated in over 40 years of military service culminating in victory over the Axis forces in 1945 allowed him to reduce the military budget by 33% and not cast a shadow of appeasement over his presidency. The New Look strategy, most exemplified by the Fiscal budget of 1955 realigned America's response to Soviet threat from conventional to Nuclear. Defense expenditures

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