The decisions of these men, for better and often for worse, had profound consequences for decades to come, influencing relations and conflicts with China, Korea, the Middle East, and around the globe. This book is a penetrating look at the misjudgments that caused enormous strife and suffering during this critical period, from the closing months of World War II through the early years of the Cold War. The men who led the world at this time executed astonishingly unwise actions that propelled the nuclear arms race and extended the Cold War.
Dallek has written a cautionary tale that considers what might have been done differently. There are no reviews yet. Be the first one to write a review. Books for People with Print Disabilities. It takes the next step of proposing alternative policies that might have resulted in a much safer and more secure world than the one bequeathed by the architects of the Cold War. The long period of Sino-American hostility might well have been prevented. In fact, someone did propose the carving out of a homeland in Germany for the survivors of the Holocaust.
It is hard to imagine that such a solution would have been palatable to the destitute Jews crowded into displaced-persons camps in Europe. One presumes that they had no interest in remaining in a country that had maltreated them so horribly during the war, but, rather, longed to reach the state that their coreligionists in Palestine already were preparing to create after the end of the British Mandate.
A recurrent theme of the book is the periodic misreading of history and the development of false historical analogies that yielded unsound policies. Memories of appeasement and American isolationism in the s, coupled with the tendency on the part of many American leaders to equate Stalin with Hitler, foreclosed the kind of sober, realistic appraisal of Soviet intentions that could have produced a more stable and peaceful world.
Dallek notes that such missteps and false historical analogies were not confined to Washington. Had his expressions of concern about the excessive and unrealistic aspirations incorporated in the Truman Doctrine and the militarization of the containment policy symbolized by the formation of NATO been given serious consideration in the Truman administration, the costly and dangerous nuclear arms race between the two superpowers could have been avoided.
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