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Dwight Eisenhower was elected president of the United States in 1953, the same year the Korean Armistice was signed, ending the hostilities of the Korean War. The Korean War was the first major conflict of the Cold War and pitted the democratic world, led by the United States, against communism and the Soviet Union. Although the Korean War began during Harry Truman’s presidency, it was Eisenhower who would usher in a new era of combating communism during the Cold War. Containing the spread of communism proved to be effective in the case of the Korean War, but to continue this containment, the United States would have to act essentially as a global democratic police force and would thus require the tools necessary to accomplish this.