The Cold War: Hindsight is 20/20

The Cold war was a protracted, yet unfought conflict that raged for almost half a century between two world superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, ideological opposites. While unfought, millions still died in propped up regimes and proxy wars, with terrible deeds done by both sides. Yet in the end, the USA truimphed due to the inherent superiority of capitalism. So, now with the hindsight we have of the cold war, what do you think the policy of the USA should have been during the cold war? Obviously, this eliminates many of the terrible things that American did, but how many? The Soviet Union still has to be held back from forcbly spreading communism into the third world, otherwise the post Cold war world could include very many China or North Korea like states. How would you handle the Soviet Union? The possibility of nuclear conflict?

I would probably not overthrow many of the regiemes that the USA did in OTL, and even while trying to maintain a better relationship with the USSR, I would try and oppose the forcing of communism on other nations (stopping Soviet back coups or invasions). I am not sure how to expedite the collapse of the USSR however. Any ideas?
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Only history will tell who wins between authoritarianism and liberty. The Cold War is still only a small battle in a larger struggle.

Perhaps if the United States and the USSR had worked together to advance China and India we would have a better world. Just a random idea.
 
Only history will tell who wins between authoritarianism and liberty. The Cold War is still only a small battle in a larger struggle.

Indeed, it is always a struggle between the two. If we look, history is the story of the power shifting between the two. Back and forth, it moves, and we are now headed back to authoritarianism.

I would have started resisting the soviets back in 45, when Stalin broke the promiss of allowing the eastern european countries to decide themselves whether or not they wanted communism or democracy. 1945 was the best time to do it too. We already had troops in Europe, and the A-Bomb was at our disposal. We should have done it there and then, but Truman didn't have the will to do it.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Indeed, it is always a struggle between the two. If we look, history is the story of the power shifting between the two. Back and forth, it moves, and we are now headed back to authoritarianism.

I would have started resisting the soviets back in 45, when Stalin broke the promiss of allowing the eastern european countries to decide themselves whether or not they wanted communism or democracy. 1945 was the best time to do it too. We already had troops in Europe, and the A-Bomb was at our disposal. We should have done it there and then, but Truman didn't have the will to do it.
DBRP:

I would have started resisting the Americans back in 49, when Truman broke the promise of allowing the Balkan countries to decide themselves whether or not they wanted Communism or democracy. 1949 was the best time to do it too. We already had troops in Europe, and the A-bomb was at our disposal. We should have done it there and then, but Stalin didn't have the will to do it.




(Can you figure out now what a creepy thing you just suggested?)
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Indeed, it is always a struggle between the two. If we look, history is the story of the power shifting between the two. Back and forth, it moves, and we are now headed back to authoritarianism.

We are in the balance of yin and yang, black chasing white and if you think one is going to get you and you want to be an opposing force you'd better be helping your side make progress. You don't fight to win, you fight to live.
 
Guatemala

I would not have overthrown the elected government of Guatemala. Although Gaddis's We Know Now revealed that Arbenz was a bit more philo-Soviet than the people who complain about his overthrow generally believe, he was democratically-elected and non-dictatorial.

He did compensate United Fruit for the lands he took and in the long run, a freeholding peasant class is a good deterrent against rural Communism (the conservative landholding Bolivian peasants did not support Che Guevera, after all).

Rhodesia

I would have recognized the compromise government of "Zimbabwe-Rhodesia" and its black leader Bishop Abel Muzorewa and bought chrome from them. The US bought chrome at a 400% markup from the USSR rather than trade with the evil racists (sarcasm on--the USSR had far more blood on its hands than Ian Smith ever did), but one could justify that by claiming that good PR among black Africans would be better in the long run.

However, there was a multiracial government in power now and it was fairly weak, as the guerrillas were able to demagogue the flag issue into overturning it. Ending the sanctions on them would strengthen the new government considerably and pull support from the Communist ZANU and ZAPU.
 
I'd have given more aid to Chiang kai Shek and the KMT.

Then i would have made sure the Portugese Colonial Empire remained stable.

As well as that, Made sure the Shah liberalised after a while in office.

As well as keep India in the US SOI.

Vietnam, i would have ordered airstrikes on the Khmer rouge strongholds.
 
I'd have given more aid to Chiang kai Shek and the KMT.

Then i would have made sure the Portugese Colonial Empire remained stable.

As well as that, Made sure the Shah liberalised after a while in office.

As well as keep India in the US SOI.

Vietnam, i would have ordered airstrikes on the Khmer rouge strongholds.

Winning China would have had enormous positive effects.

Ditto with the Shah, although I'm not sure going softer on Khomeni would give you the result you want. A bullet for that old man, combined with more bribes for the clergy at home might work out better.


Also, don't cut off support for South Vietnam. Another "South Korea" would be better for the world in general and the US in particular.
 
Recognize the difference between Soviet puppet communist states, and those with domestic revolutions. Also recognize the rivalries between communist states. Painting them all with the same brush was a major strategic error that deprived us of potential partners.

Open China sooner. I'm no fan of Nixon, but I suspect his reputation will gradually improve over time as we realize how long-lasting the implications of that decision were compared with the shorter-term things we don't like him for.
 
Assuming you can't start until 1945 limits many options.

- China is lost. There's nothing that can save Chiang or the KMT from their own folly of the previous decades. All you can do is begin an engagement with Mao, something many US observers suggested before and during the war. A China that isn't rebuffed and doesn't then turn inward could avoid many of the horrors that followed Mao's victory in '49.

- MRig's point about recognizing the difference between Stalin's puppets and "homebrewed" communists is an important one. With the process of decolonization already begun, the newly independent nations of Africa and Asia were naturally going to be drawn towards modes of government and economics different from those practiced by their former imperial masters. The US should recognized this early on and encouraged more "Titos" with an eye towards them slowly reforming over time.

- A heavily modified "Marshall Plan"(1) for newly independent nations may have helped too. An earlier Peace Corp, micro-loan set-ups, infrastructure grants, post-secondary and post-graduate education in the US along the lines of the OTL's "Moscow U", and other small scale, minimally intrusive would go a long way.

- Taking a long view of the process would greatly help too. Realizing that the "struggle" is going to last decades and that we don't need to "win" this year or during this administration would help avoid more of the clumsy, overt actions of the OTL that were in part driven by a sense of desperation.

- This is one I cannot stress enough: Earlier and more substantial postwar reform within the US itself. Earlier and less contentious civil rights for minorities, more social programs, and the like. In this manner the US is leading by example; We're not perfect either, but we're trying to get better and you can do the same.


Bill

1 - I usually cringe when current pundits suggest Marshall Plans for the various ills of the Third World because those pundits don't understand how and why the original Plan worked: Unlike the Third World then and now, Europe already had the skills, institutions, and know-how, it just needed to rebuild infrastructure.
 
The corruption and incompetence of Chiang's regime, which never controlled half of China, was literally beyond repair.

Thanks to officers so corrupt that they kept stealing the wages and supplies for their men the soldiers were reduced to selling their rifles for food, so that by 1948 the US had effectively and indirectly armed most of the Communist Chinese.
 
Do everything possible to make it a non-ideological conflict as fast as possible. Help out the Vietnamese, commie or no commie, set up a reproachment with the CCP ASAP, etc etc. Get people to view the USSR, not as the center of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, freedom-loving, worker's paradise, but rather as the totalitarian, anti-democratic, freedom-killing regime it was.
 
The US did do the Freedom/tyranny thing.

From Yalta and Potsdam, it was an ideological conflict. Heck, during the russian civil war it was ideological.

As well as that, there was no way you could have a rapproachment with a communist party whose main ideology was maoist third worldism.
 
Do everything possible to make it a non-ideological conflict as fast as possible. Help out the Vietnamese, commie or no commie, set up a reproachment with the CCP ASAP, etc etc. Get people to view the USSR, not as the center of anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, freedom-loving, worker's paradise, but rather as the totalitarian, anti-democratic, freedom-killing regime it was.

If the US had pushed the French to let Vietnam go when Ho produced a declaration of independence that was a word-for-word copy of the US one, Ho would not have jumped in bed with Mao and Stalin and gone totally murderously Commie.

This means...

1. No Vietnam War

2. Laos and Cambodia don't go Red

Those two mean several million lives saved over there and tens of thousands here. Plus no national malaise and trauma that 'Nam represented over here.

The problem is, that would have alienated the French who we needed to do something re: rearming Germany at the time. Perhaps we could compensate the French with money or something.
 
The liberal wing of the CIA in the 1950s and early 1960s was very keen on habouring the support of Social Democracies, viewing them as the obvious antedote to Communism (social welfare AND I don't get shot!) but once the Cuban Missile Crisis happened and the whole Vietnam thing got underway, they lost what support they had in the State Department.

Ironically, and admittedly down to hindsight, letting the Soviets expand their spheres while pushing them just hard enough with proxy wars might lead to earlier economic collapse, Gorbachev or not the USSR's coffers will eventually run dry. Afghanistan is the obvious example, fund the Mujahadeen enough to keep them in the fight but no more, and when Yeltsin rolls into town, you cut it off leaving just another pretty stable ex-Soviet 'stan, while the Islamist radicals run out of stinger missiles.
 
I think a more ideology should have been injected. That is, not supporting the thugs claiming to be anti-communist as well as using a free market approach to the problems facing the client states to a larger degree.
 
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