How Did The Truman Win The Cold War
Union. All they could muster were relatively hollow threats on an ad hoc basis. It was an approach US Secretary of Defense James
Forrestal complained was ‘a patchwork job’. Having formally adopted the concept of the ‘containment’ of Soviet Communism in late November 1948, most policymakers within the Truman administration simply assumed, or perhaps hoped is a better word, that the American atomic monopoly would somehow intimidate the Soviets from breaches of the peace for fear of precipitating an all-out war.
But if that was Truman’s intention, it did not appear to work.
The bomb was supposed to be the ‘winning weapon’, but by 1948 it was abundantly clear that the West was neither winning the
Cold War nor preventing Moscow from
repeatedly challenging
Western interests. The Soviets seemed to have the initiative on all the fronts that mattered. French strategist Raymond Aron wrote in 1954 that ‘When one surveys the entire period since the
Hiroshima explosion, it is diffi cult to resist the impression that the United States has lost rather than gained by its famous atomic monopoly. It has been of no use in the Cold War.’ The political crises just seemed to keep coming: Yugoslavia, Iran, Greece, Italy,
France, and Germany. And underpinning the entire debate on whether the bomb would be used was the issue of whether or not it could be used.
Attention now turned to building a real atomic capability. Political pressure to bring the boys back home and create a smooth economic transition from war footing to peace led to a massive demobilization in the wake of World War II. There were higher domestic priorities than gearing up for another war. In the perennial guns-or-butter debate, guns lost out. For those most concerned about the emerging threat of the Soviet Union, such as James Forrestal, the demobilization went too far. Anxiety was becoming prevalent amongst American military planners that the post-war demobilization had left the United States military barely able to maintain its existing commitments; if the Soviets
Forrestal complained was ‘a patchwork job’. Having formally adopted the concept of the ‘containment’ of Soviet Communism in late November 1948, most policymakers within the Truman administration simply assumed, or perhaps hoped is a better word, that the American atomic monopoly would somehow intimidate the Soviets from breaches of the peace for fear of precipitating an all-out war.
But if that was Truman’s intention, it did not appear to work.
The bomb was supposed to be the ‘winning weapon’, but by 1948 it was abundantly clear that the West was neither winning the
Cold War nor preventing Moscow from
repeatedly challenging
Western interests. The Soviets seemed to have the initiative on all the fronts that mattered. French strategist Raymond Aron wrote in 1954 that ‘When one surveys the entire period since the
Hiroshima explosion, it is diffi cult to resist the impression that the United States has lost rather than gained by its famous atomic monopoly. It has been of no use in the Cold War.’ The political crises just seemed to keep coming: Yugoslavia, Iran, Greece, Italy,
France, and Germany. And underpinning the entire debate on whether the bomb would be used was the issue of whether or not it could be used.
Attention now turned to building a real atomic capability. Political pressure to bring the boys back home and create a smooth economic transition from war footing to peace led to a massive demobilization in the wake of World War II. There were higher domestic priorities than gearing up for another war. In the perennial guns-or-butter debate, guns lost out. For those most concerned about the emerging threat of the Soviet Union, such as James Forrestal, the demobilization went too far. Anxiety was becoming prevalent amongst American military planners that the post-war demobilization had left the United States military barely able to maintain its existing commitments; if the Soviets