| "Rollback" was a euphemism used in American foreign policy circles during the Cold War to describe the use of military force to "roll back" communism from regions where it had taken hold. Rollback was most seriously considered as an option in American foreign policy in the years immediately following World War II, when American military might was unchallenged, but the development of a worldwide nuclear arms race following the Soviet Union's acquisition of the atomic bomb in 1948 led policymakers to choose "containment" over rollback as a less risky foreign policy strategy.
Nevertheless, American attempts at rollback continued from time to time, especially in the form of covert operations funded by the CIA, such as the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Rollback was revived as a major foreign policy under President Reagan, who openly aided anticommunist forces in third world nations. | 
