We entered the Cold War only after Stalin’s aggression in the Middle East and Greece. In every case the evil was obvious, the threat indisputable, but the willingness to confront was in every case late and prohibitively costly. ~Rick Santorum

Say what?  Stalin’s aggression in the Middle East?  What?  Speaking of when we entered the Cold War: when was the doctrine of containment enunciated?  1947.  What about the old Truman Doctrine?  1947.  What was at the heart of the Truman Doctrine as originally expressed in March 1947?  Aiding Turkey and Greece to make sure they didn’t fall under Soviet influence.  When did Truman begin the massive reorganisation of intelligence and military bureaucratic structures?  1947.  When did Truman formally embrace containment?  1948.   When was the Berlin Airlift?  1948.  The beginning of “active containment”?  1950.  Pretty clearly, we entered the Cold War very rapidly after the end of WWII and helped in heading off communist subversion in Greece.  To portray American policy at this time as some sort of head-in-the-sand dithering is disingenuous and insulting to the people who conceived of the doctrine of containment.   

What was prohibitively costly?  To whom?  Didn’t Stalin abandon the Greek Communists?  Didn’t the commies lose in Greece and have to settle for peace in 1949?  Weren’t we backing the Nationalists in China (albeit perhaps ineffectively) all along?  You could accuse somebody of “losing China,” I suppose, but you couldn’t say that we entered into the battle late in the day!

Why on earth should we listen to Rick “Churchill” Santorum on “the gathering storm” today when he doesn’t even seem to know the history of the Cold War?