What was the focus of US foreign policy during the Cold War?

In addition to the above points, another focus was a
nuclear arms race and to some degree, brinkmanship.  Between 1945 and 1986, the United
States and the Soviet Union amassed nuclear arsenals in excess of a total of 27,000
weapons (and tens of thousands more warheads, ready to be assembled), enough to destroy
the world dozens of times over.  The building and stationing of these weapons, both in
the United States and around the globe in allied nations was a crucial part of our
containment strategy.  The US wished to send clear signals that it was willing to do
whatever it took to protect Western Europe, and medium and short range nuclear missiles
were aggressively stationed there as late as the Reagan
Administration.

An arms race of another fashion - a huge
standing army, air force and navy - also reinforced our containment efforts.  We
established both a NATO alliance and ANZUS, similar to NATO in the Asian theater, and
stationed hundreds of thousands of troops in potential flash points, including more than
500,000 in West Germany alone.