what if macarthyr was not removed from his post?

We know that in the korea war, he was removed and dismissed from his post by the president, what if he was not removed? would the allied force be ablr to control the whole of korea and repel an chinese invasion? would the KMT be able to retake china?

 

Well, as McArthur wanted to nuke the Chinese, it could all have got very messy very quickly.

 

Particularly since at that point in time the Russians aren't going to stand back and allow the Chinese to get taken out.

McArthur, for what I can make out, (and I am far from an authority on the subject) lost the plot and couldn't see beyond the rather narrow confines of Korea. It is fortunate he was shown the door.

 

I think MacArthur was willing to entertain the idea of using nuclear force if necessary rather than in favor of simplying nuking the Chinese.
The world was very different in 1950 when comapred to the later developments. Even by 1962 the Russians backed away form the possiblity of an all out confrontation with the US over Cuba and suffered a political humiliation rather than risk it.
The Chinese had no nuclear capabilty at that time and had much less capability to keep an extended supply line stretching beyond China's borders as was demonstrated when their initial offense ran out of steam and was then pushed back.
Truman was a weak leader whose lack of a strong policy and leadership encouraged the Russians to use N. Korea as a proxy to expand their idealogy through force. His foreign policy (through the State Dept.) had indicated that the US was not interested in what happened in Korea and the Russians took that as a green light to go ahead.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the Truman doctrine was the most clearly stated and influential policy announcement of the past fifty years.

 

Truman "talked the talk" but he didn't "walk the walk".
Having a strong policy means more than rhetoric, more than a speech.
He wasn't able to stand up to Stalin so Eastern Europe was enslaved for 40+ years and he waffled in Korea..which ensured that there would also be another proxy war with the Soviets..Vietnam (also because of his ill advised support of the French against Ho).

 

If it weren't for Truman supporting the French, we would have gained Vietnam as an ally rather than a nasty war.

 

Ok...

Grieg

How could Truman have 'stood up' to Stalin to force him out of Western Europe?

JCalhoun

USA & Vietnam allies? When did America ever ally with a Communist country? In the age of McCarthyism, especially.

 

First and foremost by having the gumption to bluff. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain. The US was in the unique position of having a monopoly on nuclear weapons at that time. If he had made it clear to Stalin that if he attempted to gobble up eastern Europe he would be fighting the Allies and a rearmed and US equipped Wehrmacht as well it is likely that Stalin would have blinked. There is every indication that Churchill would have approved as well.

You don't just "give away the farm" out of fear and timidity. The US did a lot to help western Europe regain it's liberty and get back on it's feet but IMO wrote off eastern Europe and millions of people suffered under tyranny because Truman didn't even try to prevent it.

 

I am convinced that every attemp to try to stop the soviets to gain control over eastern europe would quite surely lead to war.
After all, at Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill had accepted that the Soviet Union would be the dominant power i eastern europe.
The soviets had not lost 20 million people in WW2 just to be in the same situation again as in 1941.They would have fought the war in vain.

Churchill was not in charge anymore after june 1945, and surely no european country would have agreed to a policy that would most certainly lead to war with the soviet union.
Europe was exhausted any wished nothing more than peace, also the soviets had a lot of sympathies troughout europe in those days.

Had Truman decided to go into a confrontation with Stalin, the US would have been totally isolated.
The only way to get european support would have been a soviet agression.

Surely, the fate of eastern europe in 1945 was sad, but I don't see anything Truman could have done about it.
It would have been up to Churchill and Roosevelt during the war to prevent it,after Yalta it was too late.

 

Actually Truman did not support the french from the start, but was rather in favour of Ho in the beginning.
It was only during the corean crisis that he realized that communism must be stopped wherever it tries to expand.

I don't see why a communist Viet Nam should have become an ally to the US.Their fight had been supported by the Soviet Union and China, and ideologically those were Ho's logical allies.(Altough the old rivalry with China reapeared later).

 

Of course Yalta was where the problem began and I think an ailing Roosevelt was as much responsible as Truman. Altough Atlee was PM at the Potsdam conference Churchill was still very influential around the world and I think his support would have been helpful to Truman. Furthermore had Roosevelt and Truman united in a common front on the isssue at Yalta it would have made Truman's position stronger at Potsdam.

The very fear of the Soviets you allude to in your post is exactly what I think kept Truman from making the right decision to oppose the Soviets gobbling up of eastern Europe and what Stalin was counting on...after all he had used fear and murder to become the most brutal dictator in history.
Would there have been risks in taking a stand? Undoubtably. Would it have been worth the risk? I think so. That is what being a statesman, as opposed to a mere politician is all about IMO.

 

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Or a statesmen/politician as oposed to a gambler....

Europe was in ruins in 1945.There is no chance to get them into anything that could lead to another war.(AS long as their interests are not directely threatened).
Maybe from the US the situation looked different(altough I doubt their population would have backed such a policy back then).
Generally there was a willingness like "Let's give the soviets a chance to show that they can be reliable partners in a peacefull world".
It was only years later that this changed....

 

Remembering of course all the 'Good Old Uncle Joe' propaganda during the war...

 

by the fact the usa had atomic capabilties in 1945 in itself IMHO stopped Stalin from attempting to carry on until he had conquered all of europe.

 

A-bombs didn't stop Unle Joe from trying to starve out Berlin, in the first "battle" of the cold war.

 

Perhaps because he was aware that there was not sufficent resolve or will to use them. At the same time despite the fact that Berlin was deep in the Russian sector he did not attempt to take West Berlin or completely cut off Berlin from the west after the airlift broke his initial attempt at testing the limits. He essentially lost the first battle of the Cold War.
It demonstrates that their were limits to how far he was willing to go as well which suggests that he also was bluffing and a strong uncompromising stand by US leaders might have called his bluff on subjugating eastern Europe as well.

 

Note that the airlift was a joint Anglo-American-French effort, which may have given Stalin the signal that he couldn't go far with it; in 1945, neither France nor Britain would be in any position to oppose him, but later with American support they would have.

 

During WW2, the OSS (forerunner of the CIA) was assisting the Vietnamese resistance against the Japs. These resistance movements were kinda held together by Ho Chi Minh. After WW2, they wanted support for independence from the same organization that helped them fight the Japs.

The OSS operatives went to Truman and told them the idea but Truman was astounded that they would suggest we support their independence movement when they were a French territory and France was our ally. By the time Korea happened, Ho was already seeking help from Red China and the USSR.

Had we supported Vietnam's move for independence, Ho could have become an ally in Indo-China rather than an enemy. Remember, France had lost all control in Indo-China as the Japs sent them packing.

 

Yes, except he was Communist. Look what happened to Cuba when they went Communist - the USA dropped them like they were contagious.
Look what happened to China when Mao took over - the USA refused to recognise they existed and until Nixon in the 1970s maintained the fiction that Formosa/Taiwan was China.

I just don't see an alliance with Communist Vietnam fitting in there...