Echoes of the Cold War: Truman, Eisenhower, Biden and Trump

History rarely repeats itself exactly, but it has an unerring habit of rhyming. The world that emerged from the Second World War in 1945, and the world that confronts us today, appear to echo one another in surprising ways. Then, as now, the United States found herself facing rivals determined to challenge the international order she had built. Then it was Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union; now it is Vladimir Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China. US Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower crafted the strategies that defined the first Cold War. Presidents Joseph Biden and Donald Trump, in different fashions, have begun to sketch the contours of what many now call a second one.

Truman and Biden: The Architects of Containment

When Truman assumed the presidency in 1945, he was suddenly responsible for steering the United States through the uncertain transition from war to peace. Within two years he had defined the Soviet Union not as an ally but as an adversary. The Truman Doctrine, promising to support “free peoples” under threat in Greece and Turkey, announced a global policy of containment. The Marshall Plan, launched in 1948, poured unprecedented sums into the economic recovery of Western Europe. NATO followed in 1949, creating an enduring transatlantic alliance.

The Berlin Blockade of 1948 to 1949 was the first real test. Stalin sought to squeeze the Western powers out of Berlin by cutting road and rail access. Truman responded with the Berlin Airlift, supplying the city by air for almost a year until the blockade collapsed. The episode set the pattern: American resolve, expressed through ingenuity and logistics rather than direct war, would resist Soviet pressure.

Biden has faced his own Berlin. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 transformed simmering tensions into open confrontation. The billions of dollars in aid channelled to Kyiv, the reinforcement of NATO’s eastern flank, and the decision to welcome Finland and Sweden into the alliance were all deliberate echoes of Truman’s choices three generations earlier. Where Truman spoke of communism, Biden speaks of autocracy. Where Truman defended Berlin, Biden defends Ukraine. The symbols differ, but the architecture of policy is unmistakably similar.

Eisenhower and Trump: Prudence and Retrenchment

Eisenhower, a general turned president, shared Truman’s commitment to containment but was cautious about cost. His “New Look” strategy relied upon nuclear deterrence—threatening “massive retaliation” against Soviet aggression—while reducing conventional forces. He also embraced covert operations, toppling governments in Iran and Guatemala to blunt perceived communist influence. Eisenhower’s genius was to maintain credibility without bankrupting the United States.

Trump, although a very different figure, has played a parallel role. He has been deeply sceptical of permanent foreign commitments, especially NATO. Like Eisenhower, he has wanted allies to pay more for their own defence. Unlike Eisenhower, he has so far offered no coherent doctrine. He has oscillated between overtures to Putin and confrontation with China. Yet his tariffs on Chinese goods and restrictions on technology transfers have resembled Eisenhower’s use of indirect pressure: wounding an adversary’s strengths without resorting to open war. Where Eisenhower offered steady prudence, Trump has offered volatility, but both have revealed the persistent American desire to limit the costs of global rivalry.

Economic Weapons: Marshall Plan and Sanctions

The Marshall Plan remains the emblem of Cold War statecraft: aid as a weapon. By reviving Europe’s shattered economies, the United States tied them irrevocably to her own system of liberal democracy and free trade. The generosity of this gesture was part of its genius, securing loyalty through prosperity.

Today the economic tool is wielded in reverse. Biden has led efforts to sanction Russia, choking her access to finance, energy markets and advanced technologies. Controls on semiconductor exports to China reflect the same logic: that economics can be as decisive as armies. Where Truman built loyalty through largesse, Biden sought to impose discipline through deprivation. Both reveal that economics is never neutral; it is one of the front lines of systemic conflict.

NATO Then and Now

Truman’s decision to found NATO in 1949 was revolutionary. Never before had the United States bound herself in peacetime to a European alliance. Eisenhower strengthened NATO by insisting that Europeans rearm and contribute more to their own defence.

Biden and Trump have both returned to the same theme. The entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO has shifted the balance in northern Europe, just as the original treaty did in 1949. Trump's calls for European states to spend more on defence echo Eisenhower’s demands for burden-sharing. Despite his doubts about NATO’s value, Trump has forced Europeans to reconsider their complacency. Thus in both Cold Wars, the alliance has proved a constant: evolving, expanding, but always at the heart of Western security.

Proxy Wars: Korea and Ukraine

The Korean War of 1950 was the first hot conflict of the Cold War. Truman intervened to repel North Korean aggression, but refused to escalate into China, wary of triggering a wider war. Eisenhower inherited the conflict and negotiated an armistice, leaving the peninsula divided but the principle of containment intact.

Ukraine today is the new Korea. Biden armed and financed Kyiv to resist aggression, but he resisted calls for NATO troops to fight directly. Trump, in his second term, has pressed for a negotiated peace, echoing Eisenhower’s approach; but in the absence of such a peace, he is essentially maintaining Biden's policies of supporting Kyiv. Just as Korea crystallised the first Cold War into a long-term stalemate, Ukraine may prove the defining front line of the second. And beyond Ukraine lies Taiwan, an island whose fate could yet echo Korea’s or even Cuba’s: a point where limited war risks tipping into global conflagration.

Ideas and Ideologies

The Cold War was never just about territory; it was about belief. The Soviet Union exported communism as a universal creed, while the United States proclaimed herself the defender of liberty.

The ideological battle today is subtler. Russia and China no longer preach Marxism, but they champion authoritarian capitalism: state control, selective prosperity, and a rejection of Western lectures on democracy. Their appeal lies in sovereignty rather than utopia. Biden, like Truman, cast the contest as civilisational: democracy against autocracy. Trump blurred these lines, favouring deals over doctrines. Yet both men have governed in the shadow of systemic rivals whose challenge goes far beyond geography.

Propaganda Then and Now

The Cold War was fought on the airwaves. Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty pierced the Iron Curtain, bringing Western news and culture to captive societies. Cultural diplomacy—jazz tours, academic exchanges, exhibitions—offered another kind of persuasion.

Today the propaganda war has shifted into cyberspace. Russian troll farms spread disinformation. China exports her own narratives through state media. Artificial intelligence produces convincing falsehoods at scale. The United States has responded with cyber-defence units and counter-propaganda strategies. The medium has changed, but the message remains familiar: information is a battlefield.

Lessons from Berlin and Cuba

Cold Wars are punctuated by crises that test nerves. For Truman, the Berlin Airlift proved that resolve could triumph without war. For US President John F. Kennedy, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 demonstrated that restraint, negotiation and back channels could avert catastrophe.

These precedents matter today. Ukraine is the Berlin of our time: a test of Western resolve under siege. Taiwan may prove to be the new Cuba: an island whose fate could decide whether systemic rivalry remains contained or turns to cataclysm. The lesson is clear; escalation and deterrence must be balanced by diplomacy, or great powers risk stumbling into disaster.

The Prospect of Détente

The first Cold War did not end in a straight line of confrontation. In the 1970s came détente, involving arms control treaties, the Helsinki Accords, and a willingness to acknowledge the other side’s legitimacy. These measures softened the rivalry, even if only briefly. It did not end the Cold War, but it lengthened the peace.

Could the second Cold War admit of a similar thaw? Could cyber or artificial intelligence be regulated as nuclear weapons once were? Might the United States and China one day seek stability over confrontation, as Nixon and Brezhnev once did? The answer is uncertain. Domestic politics, mistrust and the rawness of Ukraine’s tragedy may yet delay any such opening. But history suggests that Cold Wars do not remain static. They bend, they shift, and they sometimes yield to moments of pragmatism. The question is whether today’s leaders will recognise them when they come.