Communism was seen as opposition to democracy, and therefore seen as a threat to Americans. When America emerged from the second world war, shining and victorious, enjoying the most prosperous post war period ever, Europe was a country ravaged by war and looking for strong leadership and aid of any sort, providing a climate ripe for revolution. Americans took as truth the notion that the USSR, if they had enough weapons and men, would try to conquer the US or replace them as world leader. Propaganda posters painted communists in an unflattering light, as monsters among men, furthering America’s desire to put down the threat communism had to America. McCarthyism magnified the paranoia felt during this era. The extremely high costs of military expenditure and the military ventures around the globe from Korea, through Indochina to the Grenadines is one negative aspect of the era of containment. These conflicts cost millions of lives and in the two major conflicts of Korea and Vietnam you could argue that the US gained a draw and a loss. The policy of containment kept a cold war from becoming a hot war, in that if war ensued, it would be a frenzied bloodbath as both sides were well armed and passionately believing in their practices, and that nuclear weapons would be involved. War was kept from brewing over the edge, and was put off until Gorbachev came into power. The policy of containment also forced communist countries to spend heavily on defense, which eventually wrecked them economically. The Cold War itself was a massive economic waste, two nations indirectly striking back at one another. The Cold War era had pros and cons, mostly cons. The whole thing was a waste of time and human lives lost in Korea and