“You wrote ‘given our distrust of C-K-S’. Isn’t that typical of Dem leaders distrust of Diem, Oops!, Van Thieu, and Karzhai, and other scapegoats in dicey situations that they simply wanted to bail out on?”
Yes, it does. And in a sense, I sympathize. We can only get so far picking and choosing who we back; more often than not, we have to settle. That’s the main problem with being the world’s police. We’ve got the guns and bombs, but not the stomach for empire.
“Where was the fine tuned sense of distrust of Stalin for Goodness Sakes?”
Roosevelt was at first completely duped by “Uncle Joe”. It didn’t help that he was under extreme external pressure (from the Nazis) to get along to go along. But when it mattered most, and when he could have redeemed his naivete, Roosevelt was an empty seat. I’ve come to believe he was a walking (or rolling, as it were) dead man in his last term. Disturbing, how much a quasi-corpse determined one of European history’s greatest epochs.
At least Truman, a quick study, was around by ‘47, when the containment policy was adopted. Better to have had him at the turning point. Then again, perhaps there was no way out of the impass at the end of the war. And certainly, the Truman Doctrine is overrated. It mattered for people like the Greeks, the West Germans, the South Koreans, the South Vietnamese, etc. Less so for China, the Eastern bloc, etc.
As for the world as a whole, nuclear weapons are to thank for no third world war and no wider communist expansion. Of course, without presidents willing to pretend to be willing to use them, they are useless.
“And I hope and think you know better than to believe that Germany ever willingly warred against western Europe in the 20th century.”
Huh? I think they did so twice. They were the marginal aggressors in WWI and obviously the outright aggressors in WWII. Or do you think the occupation of the Rhineland made war inevitable? Certainly, it was provacative. But first of all, it was a consequence of previous aggression (not an intelligent consequence on the part of France, but a consequence nonetheless). And just like with Japan, the answer, among civilized nations, is not to go ahead and conquer everyone. Also, other countries in some way inciting you to violence is not the same as justifying your violence.
Think about this . In 1914 what designs did Germany have upon western Europe?
None, nada, zippo.
Yet the french had spent the previous 50 years with their primary foreign policy aim being the re taking of the German speaking provinces previously taken by Louis 14.
The English with their centuries old primary policy of worldwide naval hegemony became panic stricken at the inexorable building of a German navy and their unsustainable effort to match them.
And I’m sorry but I simply cannot accept the entry of German forces into the German Rhineland as countering my contention vis a vis German designs upon western Europe.