WI More Humane Cold War Approach

How could you get the US to adopt a Cold War approach that entailed fighting communism strictly by supporting democracy and human rights, instead of simply throwing itself behind any despot who claimed to be fighting communism? What would be the result of such and approach?

No responses? Is there something wrong with the way I phrased it?

I truly do not see a way to achieve this, sans a massive change in US culture. And any POD so big as to remove all US imperialistic traits would probably butterfly away most of the events we now group together as the Cold War.

Hmm...

One thing you need, first off, is no "Loss of China"/Second Red Scare. If McCarthy is nothing but a senator, and J. Edgar breaks his neck, and the go after the real spies quietly, instead of blatantly going after anyone who had ANY connection with ANYTHING Socialist/Communist in a extremely knee-jerk way. Second, you need a desire to support people who are looking for a third way of living, between "Statist Communism" and Liberal Democracy and supposed Free-Market Capitalist as their way of living. Support the groups that got suppressed in South America, Africa, and Asia, and you undermine "International Communist Revolution", that is Trotsky's Commintern. Plenty of people were "called" Communists who were only socialists or social reformers. Heck, the F. B. I. had a file on HELEN KELLER because she was against the First World War!

Well, Helen Keller actually was a communist...
I think, were the US to take an anticolonial stance, it would have alienated France and the UK...but it would have given the US many new allies. Perhaps even Ho Chi Minh might have turned to Washington!

So, the goal is for the U.S. to lose?

Ivan wasn't playing by that set of rules, in fact exactly the opposite was the case with KGB backing for every damned revolutionary group that popped its head up.

Before the FSB decided to pull back into its shell with Putin in power, there were some very interesting bits of information that came out of Moscow, including KGB support for things as diverse as the 1960's U.S. anti-war movement to to bloody revolutions in Africa.

Did the U.S. screw up in some cases? Hell yes. Central America is still better off today than it would have been under a lot of less skilled Castros (Don't have much use for Fidel, but as Communist dictators go, he was fairly efficient and kept the body count in the five figure range, which is WAY better than average).

CalBear said:

So, the goal is for the U.S. to lose?

Ivan wasn't playing by that set of rules, in fact exactly the opposite was the case with KGB backing for every damned revolutionary group that popped its head up.

Before the FSB decided to pull back into its shell with Putin in power, there were some very interesting bits of information that came out of Moscow, including KGB support for things as diverse as the 1960's U.S. anti-war movement to to bloody revolutions in Africa.

Did the U.S. screw up in some cases? Hell yes. Central America is still better off today than it would have been under a lot of less skilled Castros (Don't have much use for Fidel, but as Communist dictators go, he was fairly efficient and kept the body count in the five figure range, which is WAY better than average).

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Well, it depends on just how naive the US is.

After all, fighting for democracy and human rights that involves, you know, fighting for democracy and human rights would by default mean that we opposed Moscow's efforts. It's just that we'd be opposing them from a "they're a pack of dictatorial bastards" standpoint, not a "they'll be bad for American-owned businesses" standpoint. Frankly, this would have much better long-term results than what we did IOTL.

The Sandman said:

Well, it depends on just how naive the US is.

After all, fighting for democracy and human rights that involves, you know, fighting for democracy and human rights would by default mean that we opposed Moscow's efforts. It's just that we'd be opposing them from a "they're a pack of dictatorial bastards" standpoint, not a "they'll be bad for American-owned businesses" standpoint. Frankly, this would have much better long-term results than what we did IOTL.

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Would it? How many times would we have to cede the battle to the communists because there was no viable democratic faction to support?

CalBear said:

... (Don't have much use for Fidel, but as Communist dictators go, he was fairly efficient and kept the body count in the five figure range, which is WAY better than average).

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The fact you can complement someone by saying they only killed people by the thousands is a pretty powerfull statement about how bad communism really is/was.

Corbell Mark IV said:

The fact you can complement someone by saying they only killed people by the thousands is a pretty powerfull statement about how bad communism really is/was.

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Considering our friendly tinpot leaders in the rest of the americas had similar body counts I would refrain from throwing rocks in glass houses.

archaeogeek said:

Considering our friendly tinpot leaders in the rest of the americas had similar body counts I would refrain from throwing rocks in glass houses.

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Ah, but you're comparing the worst to the best respectively...

Corbell Mark IV said:

Ah, but you're comparing the worst to the best respectively...

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*cough* Congo Free State, Opium Wars...

Corbell Mark IV said:

Ah, but you're comparing the worst to the best respectively...

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Regardless, the point is that they think it might have been better if we didn't support some of the tinpots that we did. In that, he has a good point. You know why Iran hates the United States so much? Because we propped up the Shah for so long. You know why many in Latin America resent the United States? Because we on more than one occasion booted over liked leaders for such despots, and we backed others. The US backed the Juntas in Brazil and Argentina, they were largely responsible for having Salvador Allende killed in Chile and having Agusto Pinochet take his place. I do admit there are places where we cannot support only a democratic faction. But supporting those people where we can makes sense, does it not?

If you have a POD during WWII that makes it take longer and weakens the soviets further than OTL you could get something more akin to what you are looking for, first is that you prevent the Soviets from being able to support as many revolutionary movements as it did OTL. Also there is less fear in the west regarding the communists due to the fact that they are simply less of a threat. Then a longer war gives DeGaul more rope to hang himself with in regard to pissing off the other allies and thus you can eliminate the US desire to please the french vis a vis indo-china. Said pod could also butterfly away truman being made VP and in stead get someone with less of a strong anti-communist streak(not nessissarily wallace mind you, no FAT repeats thank you). Add in the possibility of no yalta conference, or TTL's version of yalta having a further east iron curtain and you can avert the possibility of eastern european countries all going commie in quick succession in the late 40's and early fifties, this would effectively prevent the "domino theory" from gaining credibility in the west. A weaker USSR also means a later russian development of the A-bomb which also lessens western fears of a communist menace.

Calbear's TL is a good example of this scenario on steroids.

Sword of the South said:

How could you get the US to adopt a Cold War approach that entailed fighting communism strictly by supporting democracy and human rights, instead of simply throwing itself behind any despot who claimed to be fighting communism? What would be the result of such and approach?

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Possibly this could begin with a healthier George Marshall, who lasts through the Truman administration and leaves behind a more influential George Kennan (butterflying away Dean Acheson entirely). Could require a Stevenson win in '52 that could put Kennan as Sec. State rather than Dulles.

This would see an approach to the Cold War focused more on Marshall Plan type ideas, rebuilding war-torn countries and essentially paying people to see that Democracy is good. That gives the approach to the Cold War less of a focus on military engagements. Of course, then, you would have to take care that effort keeps its pro-Democracy edge, rather than just devolving into throwing money at dictators and warlords.

Irony Served Cold

I agree with the previous poster that no "loss" of China and OTL J Edgar Hoover being brought to heel or falling down a well would've done wonders for defusing the Red Scare of the 1950's in the US.
If we could have paid attention to the facts on the ground in and done a sane threat assessment of China and Vietnam, we would not have snubbed the PRC or Ho Chi Minh.

We had OSS contacts during WWII with Ho Chi Minh and the Communist Chinese, and HCM dearly hoped the US would recognize his regime in Indochina, because the US had never made any bones about owning the place. France did and had something to prove.
The US could have made decolonization contingent on getting Marshall Plan aid, but they didn't, because they had plans for Europe (France, the UK, the Netherlands, et al) being the bulwark against Communism.
As to Cold War dictators getting boatloads of US cash, military/CIA support, and so forth, we just took our Latin American policy of interventionism and setting up pliable caudillos global.
If they threatened US interests (mainly profits), we removed them, democratically elected or not. Guatemala, Chile, Zaire, Iran, Iraq, and Panama can all attest to that.

So, for US Cold War policy to have been more humane, less anti-democratic, and so forth, you gotta butterfly away Manifest Destiny, the Monroe Doctrine and our unique sense of Puritan imperialism for our opponent-of-the-moment's own good before WW II.
After WWII, have somebody less flinty and insecure than Truman in charge, eager to strike out on his own from FDR's willingness to work with anyone to defeat the main enemy, Hitler.
We've tossed around the idea of Wilkie or somebody else taking over for FDR who is less confrontational with the Soviets on the board, but IMNSHO, the main POD would be somebody who values self-determination and looks down the road for long-term economic and political gains working with folks with secure power bases that don't need boatloads of American "help". However, it would most likely take until the 1960's for us to get out of the Lend-lease/ "arsenal of democracy" mindset, barring some isolationist volte face in 1948.

IOW, damned near ASB for the US to have done better.

You would need to change the way that senior US policymakers looked at communism. One of the reasons that the US government got into the habit of supporting anyone who was fighting communism, even if they were murderous warlords, is that the majority of US politicians, diplomats, military and other government officials tended to look at communism as a monolithic worldwide conspiracy that was all controlled from Moscow. There was usually an assumption that any kind of success for any communist movement anywhere would result in a nation becoming as much a satellite of the Soviet Union as Bulgaria or East Germany.

Paul Spring said:

You would need to change the way that senior US policymakers looked at communism. One of the reasons that the US government got into the habit of supporting anyone who was fighting communism, even if they were murderous warlords, is that the majority of US politicians, diplomats, military and other government officials tended to look at communism as a monolithic worldwide conspiracy that was all controlled from Moscow. There was usually an assumption that any kind of success for any communist movement anywhere would result in a nation becoming as much a satellite of the Soviet Union as Bulgaria or East Germany.

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The idea that communism was not monolithic shoulda been obvious in 1956, when Hungary tried to break away and got smashed down by Khrushchev.

CalBear said:

So, the goal is for the U.S. to lose?

Ivan wasn't playing by that set of rules, in fact exactly the opposite was the case with KGB backing for every damned revolutionary group that popped its head up.

Before the FSB decided to pull back into its shell with Putin in power, there were some very interesting bits of information that came out of Moscow, including KGB support for things as diverse as the 1960's U.S. anti-war movement to to bloody revolutions in Africa.

Did the U.S. screw up in some cases? Hell yes. Central America is still better off today than it would have been under a lot of less skilled Castros (Don't have much use for Fidel, but as Communist dictators go, he was fairly efficient and kept the body count in the five figure range, which is WAY better than average).

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What about Guatemala?

TheMann said:

Regardless, the point is that they think it might have been better if we didn't support some of the tinpots that we did. In that, he has a good point. You know why Iran hates the United States so much? Because we propped up the Shah for so long. You know why many in Latin America resent the United States? Because we on more than one occasion booted over liked leaders for such despots, and we backed others. The US backed the Juntas in Brazil and Argentina, they were largely responsible for having Salvador Allende killed in Chile and having Agusto Pinochet take his place. I do admit there are places where we cannot support only a democratic faction. But supporting those people where we can makes sense, does it not?

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Yeah...it's like, when I was a kid, I always wondered why we weren't allied with/pretty friendly with India. It's the world's largest democracy, not much more left-wing than plenty of European states, is in a strategic location, etc. It seemed to appeal, much more than propping up Pakistani or Iranian dictators did (or had; I wasn't alive when that was going on). Missed opportunity, it was. But then I have had a slight Wilsonian/idealist streak for a long time...