Could U.S. foreign policy have had a more nuanced view of communist nations, noticing that not all of them beholden to Moscow, and finding ways to peel away support for heterodox communist regimes. Like Yugoslavia.
I got the idea from the comment here:
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/po...t_and_worst_list_of_foreign_policy_presidents
I got the idea from the comment here:
http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/po...t_and_worst_list_of_foreign_policy_presidents
On Truman - An Ideology of Eternal War
I think on the whole Truman is overrated these days. In letting MacArthur cross into North Korea, despite Beijing's repeated warnings, he ended up at war with *China*, ruining any prospect of peace in that country and leading to ruinously costly conflict for the United States.
More than anything else it was the Cold War ideology. He decided that all Communist regimes, and in particular those in Asia, were in cahoots or basically run by Moscow. Therefore he started aiding the French in Indochina, despite there being only Chinese involvement and the Soviets actually being very conservative there, creating a
He created an "Us vs. Them" mentality which meant China could not b recognize for two decades and which, in the broader sense of America's "ideological crusader zeal", is still with us to day in the form of the War on Terror.
I don't want to denigrate his other achievements - the Marshall Plan and NATO - but the damage he did in Asia and in creating an ideology of eternal war are perhaps irreparable.