Well, you have schmoozers and you have leaders. Leaders can rub others the wrong way. I consider Mac (and Patton) leaders, while Ike was more a schmoozer. As President, the schmoozing left us weaker. That demonstrates today why the base of the GOP is fed up with that type of pol and wants an unapologetic leader.
"To be sure, Eisenhower's (and later Reagan's) strategy of well-armed containment required patience and resolve in the expectation that generational changes would eventually lead to the peaceful decomposition of the USSR and the other communist regimes of Europe. And that is of course what happened."
And we have similarly decomposed. This was not the desired outcome.
"Should we have focused on China and Asia instead? Absolutely not. If we lost Europe, we lost the Cold War. Since Europe after WW II contained a decisively large fraction of the world's uncommitted scientific and technical talent and productive capacity, the incontestable logic of strategy required that the US give Europe its primary attention, not China. And while Korea, China, Japan, and the rest of Asia encompassed a vast land mass and population, in 1952, even when added together, they had minimal economic power and little ability to project military power. That made MacArthur's focus on China and Asia strategically foolish."
I did not suggest an exclusive focus on Asia under a MacArthur Administration. Losing either Europe or Asia was unacceptable, and we effectively did lose Asia. I disagree vehemently that MacArthur's focus on Asia (as a military leader) was "foolish." He exposed Truman's disastrously inept weakness and could've averted the situation we have today.
"Your suggested alternative -- let MacArthur move on China, defeat Mao, and install Chiang -- would have required an immense military effort that the US public would have rejected. And to what end? The conquest of a large, populous, and staggeringly poor country from the communists -- so that it can be returned to Chiang and his gang of corrupt, bickering, incompetents who lost it in the first place. No thanks."
This is a shocking statement. Liberating China from a monster, the greatest mass-murderer known in modern history, before he could implement that action en masse and placing it in the hands of an American ally is wrong-headed ? Your alleging Chiang's "corruption/bickering/incompetents" deserved him to lose Mainland China ? Seeing the result in Taiwan under his governance and policies, I simply cannot believe your stance here. I am utterly floored.
Having political skills and a genial manner does not exclude talent as a leader. Eisenhower’s management style, like that of George Marshall, avoided flash and attention. Where Marshall was stern and sober-minded though, Ike as President cultivated an avuncular image and often seemed detached from day to day politics.
It took historians decades to discern that behind the scenes, Ike as President was frequently pulling the strings and accomplishing his objectives at minimal effort and political cost. Reagan used similar methods, with business magazines praising his skill at delegation, which insiders said was modeled on Eisenhower’s practices. Both Reagan and Eisenhower are now generally rated as among the country’s better and even greatest presidents.
Growing US domestic issues today.
The concept of proximate cause matters. Eisenhower cannot fairly be blamed for, say, today’s high rates of illegitimacy and family breakdown, nor can it be assumed that somehow MacArthur as president would have made a difference for the better.
Trying to save China from Mao.
US resources were limited to the degree that we might be able to check the Soviets from further gains in Europe, but we could not, to a virtual certainty, undo Mao’s conquest of China, and there is no possibility that we could have done both. Worse, squandering our economic and military resources trying to save China would likely have permitted a Soviet takeover in Europe.
Chiang as a ruler.
During WW II, US aid was often stolen or diverted by Chiang and his circle, and military resources were usually held back for use against Mao instead of the Japanese. After the war, Chiang and his allies were soundly defeated by Mao. Chiang and the Nationalists lacked a clear and appealing political program for reform and had little appeal to the Chinese populace.
Indeed, on Taiwan, much of the native population regarded Chiang and his Nationalists as invaders, and Chiang’s rule depended on a harsh security regime. Not until after Chiang died was a modern democracy contrived on Taiwan in the 1990s.
To be sure, US support for Chiang was sabotaged by communists working in the US government, but that does not mean that the Chinese populace was ready to revolt against Mao. What MacArthur would have delivered if he had his way would have been a war with China with little prospect of success at reasonable and bearable cost -- and we would risked losing Europe to the Soviets in the meantime.