Reverend Norv wrote:Rupudska wrote:
Well due to Japan's lack of a military on paper, the Emperor is little more than a figurehead. And anti-war sentiment has been deeply ingrained into Japanese culture, to the point where the remnants of those right-wing cranks are now fringe groups at best.
And as for going after Stalin, the problem is that we likely would have had to do it largely alone. Europe was (quite justifiably) sick of war, and the UK and France in particular were in no position to help. China was too busy violently tearing itself apart to be of any use, and even if we were to convince Japan to help then and there, they were in no economic or industrial position to help either.
Sure. But here's the thing: with all that, 1945 was still the best moment to go after Stalin. We had an enormous wartime army, most of which was already forward-deployed in Germany. Wait even a year, and half those troops are mustered out of wartime service and back in civilian life on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The Soviet Union was still devastated by war, which meant we could outproduce them in armor and aircraft. Wait even a year, and the Soviets get to move the rest of their factories from the Urals back to the Russian heartland. And most importantly, we were the sole possessors of the atomic bomb, and the Soviets knew that we were willing to use it. By 1949, Stalin had a bomb of his own, and a conventional offensive in Europe was off the table.
The point is this: knowing what we now know about Soviet rule in Eastern Europe, it seems clear that there was a moral imperative to keep Stalin behind the USSR's prewar frontiers. And the only moment when we could realistically have done that was in 1945, immediately after Germany's surrender. Truman let the opportunity go by. I continue to believe that this was a mistake.
Occupied Deutschland wrote:Reverend Norv wrote:
Sure. But here's the thing: with all that, 1945 was still the best moment to go after Stalin. We had an enormous wartime army, most of which was already forward-deployed in Germany. Wait even a year, and half those troops are mustered out of wartime service and back in civilian life on the wrong side of the Atlantic. The Soviet Union was still devastated by war, which meant we could outproduce them in armor and aircraft. Wait even a year, and the Soviets get to move the rest of their factories from the Urals back to the Russian heartland. And most importantly, we were the sole possessors of the atomic bomb, and the Soviets knew that we were willing to use it. By 1949, Stalin had a bomb of his own, and a conventional offensive in Europe was off the table.
The point is this: knowing what we now know about Soviet rule in Eastern Europe, it seems clear that there was a moral imperative to keep Stalin behind the USSR's prewar frontiers. And the only moment when we could realistically have done that was in 1945, immediately after Germany's surrender. Truman let the opportunity go by. I continue to believe that this was a mistake.
I wholeheartedly agree, alongside internment I've always seen the abandonment of Eastern Europe as probably the largest American betrayal/cowardice/etc. of the war. Allowing one dictator to be traded in for another was immensely disgusting from the perspective (at least my own interpretation) of American principle and (my own assessment of) practicality.
Precognition, however, is not an ingrained ability in real life. Allied intelligence on Soviet forces is sketchy at best, and if Truman tried to act, Stalin would know almost immediately. He had Soviet spies running circles in Project Manhattan, for god's sake!
And then there's the issue of trying to prod the American people to fight the Soviets for any reason at all. Remember, for four years, the WAllies had been drumming this into the Allied population:
Suddenly calling Stalin the enemy equal to Hitler, while on hindsight is justified, probably won't work too well back then. It just stank of opportunism and the public would have serious trouble getting back to a war footing after well... winning.
To put it simply, 1945 didn't put the WAllies any closer to beating the Soviets realistically, at least not without an equal or far greater cost than WWII ever had.
