A bodyguard of lies:

  Deception is a standard tactic that all parties practice. As Churchill said, the truth is so important during times of conflict that it must always be accompanied by "a bodyguard of lies."
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  In "We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History," Gaddis summarizes early Cold War history through the Cuban missile crisis in light of information coming out of various archives and other sources as of the mid 1990s. Such information continues to flow out of these sources, so he prudently warns that his is not the last word. For an account of the Soviet collapse and the first decade of transformation politics and economics in Russia, see, Kotkin, "Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000" See, also, Meier, "Black Earth, A Journey Through Russia After the Fall." 
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  However, Gaddis has much to tell us that wasn't known prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall - and much to confirm that had previously been enmeshed in controversy. Encouragingly free of the "moral relativism" that incredibly afflicts some intellectual circles, the author provides a well balanced account of this Cold War period, with analytical conclusions generally well rooted in his factual presentation. The few - very few - weaknesses are all of a minor nature - on peripheral points - and will thus primarily be noted just at the end of this review.
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The practical impacts of ideology:

There were numerous instances when Marxist aspirations were clearly reflected in the decision-making of communist leaders - but there were also numerous instances when world revolution played second fiddle.

For Leninist parties, clearly nothing matters more than despotic control.

  Was Marxism a core belief of Soviet and other communist leaders - or was it predominantly a tactical ploy with which to justify domestic tyranny and to gain tactical advantages internationally? The author relates numerous instances when Marxist aspirations were clearly reflected in the decision-making of communist leaders - but also reaffirms the numerous instances when world revolution played second fiddle to national interests and the personal interests of the various leaders.
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  We must probably accept real world ambiguity, here. However, for Leninist parties, clearly nothing matters more than despotic control. Gaddis quotes a Soviet official who bluntly stated: "The idea of propagating world communist revolution was an ideology screen to hide our desire for world domination." (Ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party would abandon communism in order to remain in power.)
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  Just as Lenin abandoned efforts to foment a proletarian revolution and instead decided to build a revolutionary party that would create the proletarian revolution, Stalin practically abandoned efforts to foment world communist revolution and decided instead to concentrate on spreading communism by Soviet expansion. In both cases, the resulting political entity would be something the leader would dominate - and domination was something both Lenin and Stalin insisted upon..
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  Nevertheless, the author presents convincing evidence that such communist leaders as Stalin, Mao and Khrushchev were true believers whose world outlook was dominated by the Marxist propaganda myth.
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Autocratic decision makers:

  "Both Stalin and Hitler made foolish mistakes in 1941, and for much the same reason: their system of government reflected and reinforced their own romanticism, providing few safeguards against incompetence at the top."

  The paranoid thugs that frequently rise to power in Leninist revolutionary parties quickly purge all independent minds around them, leaving only the energetic, unquestioning order-takers.

  Every effort of the Soviet Union to divide the West after WW-II and expand the Soviet Empire resulted instead in a solidifying of Western security, economic and political arrangements. Victories in establishing despotic domestic and imperial control resulted in the accumulation of vast financial burdens that would ultimately hasten Soviet collapse.
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Stalin and the Cold War:

Stalin consistently applied the same tyrannical methods to secure Soviet control over its new empire that he used to secure his own position from potential party rivals and domestic threats - real or imagined.

  It is a shrewd and ambitious but paranoid Stalin - conflating his own security interests with those of the Soviet Union - that the author accurately portrays. Stalin consistently applied the same tyrannical methods to secure Soviet control over its new empire that he used to secure his own position from potential party rivals and domestic threats - real or imagined.

  "[Within the Soviet Union], it was no longer permitted there to distinguish between state interests, party interests and those of Stalin himself. National security had come to mean personal security, and the Kremlin boss saw so many threats to it that he had already resorted to murder on a mass scale in order to remove all conceivable challengers to his regime. It would be hard to imagine a more unilateral approach to security than the internal practices Stalin had set in motion during the 1930s."

The failure of the Red Army and the Soviet Union to gain acceptance as liberators among East Europeans is a key to the ultimate outcome of the Cold War.

  The West, on the other hand, coalesced to provide security from the Stalinist threat that the dictator's actions made all too plausible. The Stalinist threat - and the natural defensive response to it - probably made the Cold War conflict unavoidable.

  "The Western democracies sought a form of security that would reject violence or the threat of it: security was to be a collective good, not a benefit denied to some in order to provide it to others. Stalin saw things very differently: security came only by intimidating or eliminating potential challengers. World politics was an extension of Soviet politics, which was in turn an extension of Stalin's preferred personal environment: a zero-sum game, in which achieving security for one meant depriving everyone else of it.

  As early as 1942 - during the darkest days for the WW-II alliance - Stalin was already demanding recognition for his territorial ambitions.
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  Gaddis reports that Soviet leaders were surprised when East Europeans didn't welcome the Red Army as liberators. Initially, elections were held in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany, with poor results for the communists. So, if the East Europeans would not accede to Soviet dominance, Stalin would impose it.
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  The failure of the Red Army and the Soviet Union to gain acceptance as liberators among East Europeans is viewed by Gaddis as a key to the ultimate outcome of the Cold War.

  "That non-event, in turn, removed any possibility of a division of Europe all members of the Grand Alliance could have endorsed. It ensured that an American sphere of influence would arise there largely by consent, but that its Soviet counterpart could sustain itself only by coercion. The resulting asymmetry would account, more than anything else, for the origins, escalation, and ultimate outcome of the Cold War."

  Gaddis is of course correct in emphasizing the importance of this factor, but there were other major factors that his emphasis here short changes. The impossibility of socialist economics - and the double impossibility of socialist economics in a nation subject to Leninist party dominance - was another major factor in Soviet failure, that Gaddis appropriately covers later in the book. Ultimately - with military and political stalemate - it was the dollar that became the determinative strategic factor in the Cold War.

  In those nations that experienced the tender mercies of the Red Army at the end of WW-II, it was simply impossible for people to welcome Soviet influence. The Finns accepted Soviet influence, but they had escaped occupation by the Red Army. Stalin's government was every bit as vicious as Hitler's - he was carving huge chunks of territory out of the eastern European states - and his army was acting brutishly - raping and looting wherever they conquered.
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The absence of checks and balances leaves authoritarian systems prone to the stupidity of their leaders. The brutish conduct with which dominance is maintained creates putative opposition everywhere.

  Thus, Stalin was left with nothing but brute force with which to gain his empire and hold it together. As soon as that brute force was withdrawn, the empire crumbled.

  "It used to be thought that authoritarian leaders, unfettered by moral scruples, had powerful advantages over their democratic counterparts: it was supposed to be a source of strength to be able to use all means in the pursuit of selected ends. Today this looks much less certain."

  The absence of checks and balances leaves authoritarian systems prone to the stupidity of their leaders. The brutish conduct with which dominance is maintained creates putative opposition everywhere. (But all this is for naught unless a viable opposition offers a more attractive alternative. Evil will indeed triumph if good men stand aside.)
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  Thoroughly reviewing the relations between the Allies during and immediately after WW-II, and the Marxist attitudes of Stalin and Molotov, Gaddis concludes:

  "[It] was Stalin's disposition to wage cold wars: he had done so in one form or another throughout his life, against members of his own family, against his closest advisers and their families, against old revolutionary comrades, against foreign communists, even against returning Red Army war veterans who, for whatever reason, had contacts of any kind with the West in the course of defeating Nazi Germany. 'A man who had subjected all activities in his own country to his views and to his personality, Stalin could not behave differently outside,' Djilas recalled. 'He became himself the slave of the despotism, the bureaucracy, the narrowness, and the servility that he imposed on his country.' Khrushchev put it more bluntly: 'No one inside the Soviet Union or out had Stalin's trust.'"

  Nor was there any way to appease Stalin since - like Hitler - there would never be any end to his demands. With his paranoid attitude, he readily accepted the Marxist view that conflict with the capitalist states was inevitable.

  "Stalin had certain characteristics that set him off from all others in authority at the time the Cold War began. He alone pursued personal security by depriving everyone else of it: no Western leader relied on terror to the extent that he did. He alone had transformed his country into an extension of himself: no Western leader could have succeeded at such a feat, and none attempted it. He alone saw war and revolution as acceptable means with which to pursue ultimate ends: no Western leader associated violence with progress to the extent that he did."

  Indeed, territorial ambition was a feature of Stalin's beliefs. The author quotes Molotov:

  "My task as minister of foreign affairs was to expand the borders of our Fatherland. And it seems that Stalin and I coped with this task quite well."

The U.S. acted to expand its sphere of influence - but everywhere seeking "to reconstitute independent centers of power in Europe and Asia."

  But Stalin was not about to start WW-III over peripheral questions - like Trieste, Northern Iran, or even Korea. He had plenty on his plate, recovering from WW-II and consolidating his vast new conquests in East Europe. He could pretend to be uninfluenced by the U.S. monopoly in atomic weapons - but this was only a pretense. He would probe in Berlin and the Turkish Straits, but retreat in the face of determined opposition.
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  As Gaddis points out at some length, everywhere and at every level within the Soviet Empire, Stalin sought dominance. The U.S. acted in response to expand its sphere of influence - but everywhere seeking "to reconstitute independent centers of power in Europe and Asia."
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  While it was hoped that American success in this effort would strengthen the world capitalist system, it was always understood in the U.S. that this independence would exist with respect to the U.S. as well as with respect to the Soviet Union. It was the threat from the Soviet Union that would serve most to bind the Western alliances.

  "The American empire arose primarily, therefore, not from internal causes, as had the Soviet empire, but from a perceived external danger powerful enough to overcome American isolationism."

  Here, Gaddis adopts an unfortunate choice of terminology. That this misuse of terminology is widespread in intellectual circles makes it doubly unfortunate. An alliance held together only by the Soviet threat is hardly an "empire" in any real sense of that word - even when led by a dominant power. There still remains much ideological mischief in such a misuse of the word "empire."

The purpose of American policy makers was to create "independent centers of power in Europe and Asia." These power centers would be strong enough to say "no" not just to the Soviet Union, but also to the U.S.

  Washington's policies were designed to foster political self-determination and economic integration based on "common interests" that would attract nations into the fold. The Marshall Plan furthered that policy within Western Europe. (This is a process that has achieved sufficient momentum to continue on its own after the end of the Soviet threat - among nations that are free to view their interests as not always coinciding with those of the U.S.)

  "Its purpose was to create an American sphere of influence, to be sure, but one that would allow those within it considerable freedom. The principles of democracy and open markets required nothing less, but there were two additional and more practical reasons for encouraging such autonomy. First, the United States itself lacked the capability to administer a large empire: the difficulties of running occupied Germany and Japan were proving daunting enough. Second, the idea of autonomy was implicit in the task of restoring European self-confidence; for who, if not Europeans themselves, was to say when the self-confidence of Europeans had been restored.?"

  The purpose of American policy makers - guided in substantial degree by the analyses of George Kennan, a high level official in the State Department - was to create "independent centers of power in Europe and Asia." These power centers would be strong enough to say "no" not just to the Soviet Union, but also to the U.S.

  "The American empire, therefore, reflected little imperial consciousness or design."

The costs of dominance:

  Analysis on Marxist lines led Stalin to believe after WW-II that time was on his side - that economic difficulties would quickly once again afflict the capitalist nations, and that England and the U.S. would become rivals. The Marshall Plan and its associated cooperative arrangements came as a big shock to Stalin.

  "Ideology again had led Stalin into romanticism and away from reality. Once he realized this -- in Europe at least -- he never quite recovered from the shock."

Where the Soviets brought brutality, looting, domineering and rapes estimated in the millions,  American authorities in Europe and Japan - sometimes on their own initiative and sometimes even against Washington directives - responded in accordance with their democratic ideals and encouraged democracy and economic redevelopment and concerted actions.

  Persuasion, negotiation and compromise - the tools of democratic government - were what the U.S. relied upon. This had served it well in WW-II and would again serve it well throughout the Cold War. Accommodating the interests and considering the capabilities of allies and proposals from allies helped cement allied relationships.

  "Americans so often deferred to the wishes of allies during the early Cold War that some historians have seen the Europeans -- especially the British -- as having managed them."

  Where the Soviets brought brutality, looting, domineering and rapes estimated in the millions,  American authorities in Europe and Japan - sometimes on their own initiative and sometimes even against Washington directives - responded in accordance with their democratic ideals and encouraged democracy and economic redevelopment and concerted actions.
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  In response to the success of this approach, Stalin tightened his grip on communist parties by establishing the "Cominform." The coup in Czechoslovakia assured passage of the Marshall Plan - accelerated plans to consolidate Western zones in Germany and to proceed towards an independent West Germany - and began the planning that led to NATO.
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  Stalin responded with the Berlin blockade - hoping to pressure the West into suspending the new German currency and plans for the West German state. Instead, he caused an acceleration of plans for NATO and an independent West Germany - undermined support for Communist parties in the West - and helped Truman's come-from-behind election victory in 1948.
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  In the event, the Berlin airlift overcame the blockade, and Stalin ultimately determined it was not worth the risks of war or the many costs of the trade restrictions that the allies imposed in retaliation. For Stalin, the lifting of the blockade in May, 1949, was a humiliating setback.
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Britain and France adamantly rejected suggestions that West Germany be neutralized as part of a deal for Russian and U.S. withdrawal - withdrawals that would leave the Soviet Union as the dominant military force on the European continent.

U.S. policy triumphed not because of any tactical brilliance, but because it reflected the nation's democratic habits.

  But Yugoslavia inflicted an even worse setback on Stalin.  Stalin had attempted to coerce Tito into subordinating Yugoslav interests to those of the Soviet Union. This led to Tito's final disillusionment and defection from the Soviet empire. Unwilling to risk a military response in the mountains of Yugoslavia, Stalin instead initiated widespread purge trials in East Europe. This eliminated overt signs of independence in East European governments, but also eliminated all remaining remnants of willing affiliation among the people.
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  In West Europe, support for NATO became overwhelming. It was the West Europeans, Gaddis points out, who initiated and promoted NATO as a vehicle to assure them of U.S. protection. Britain and France adamantly rejected suggestions that West Germany be neutralized as part of a deal for Russian and U.S. withdrawal - withdrawals that would leave the Soviet Union as the dominant military force on the European continent.
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  U.S. policy triumphed not because of any tactical brilliance, but because it reflected the nation's democratic habits.

  "Negotiation, compromise, and consensus building abroad came naturally to statesmen steeped in the uses of such practices at home: in this sense, the American political tradition served the country better than its realist critics -- Kennan definitely among them -- believed it did."

  The Marshall Plan was conditioned on the submergence of old national rivalries and movement towards economic integration and political cooperation - including with West Germany. The Europeans, through such initiatives as NATO, and the Schuman Plan for a "European Coal and Steel Community," were active participants in this process.

  "What is significant, then, is not simply that the West Europeans invited the United States to construct a sphere of influence and include them within it; it is also that the Americans encouraged the Europeans to share the responsibility for determining how it would function, and that the Europeans were eager to do this. Washington officials were themselves often genuinely uncertain about what to do, and that provides a part of the explanation for this pattern of mutual accommodation."

  Thus rejecting a moral relativism interpretation of the spheres of influence of the two superpowers, the author convincingly demonstrates the obvious differences between them.

  Despite the inevitable weaknesses in the moral conduct of the West - indeed, despite the tactical compromises that saw the West cooperating at one time or another - at some level or another - with almost every odious despot not in active opposition to it - never in the history of man has the line between good and evil more clearly been drawn than during WW-II and the Cold War. That Gaddis should feel obligated to devote so much effort to debunking so grossly stupid a concept as moral relativism is revealing in its own right about obvious weaknesses in certain Western intellectual and academic circles.

The Chinese communists:

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While Stalin never completely controlled Mao, he was able to exercise considerable influence over Chinese communist tactics, and there was considerable cooperation between them.

  Neither Washington nor Moscow played any major role in Mao's final victory. Although both offered some assistance to the belligerents, the factors that determined the course of the conflict were almost entirely domestic.
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  Nevertheless, the author cites Chinese sources showing that cooperation between Mao and Stalin was intense and of long standing - running back to the 1920s. While Stalin never completely controlled Mao, he was able to exercise considerable influence over Chinese communist tactics, and there was considerable cooperation between them after the Chinese communist victory. While Stalin underestimated Mao's chances of success, he was ecstatic over the victory, and viewed it as proof that time was running in favor of the communist cause. By 1949, he was happy to acknowledge a compact between the two great communist states to actively attack Western interests.

  "Contacts between the Comintern and the Chinese Communists were close throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, and it now appears that the  latter took few initiatives, either in the diplomatic or military arena, that did not have Stalin's approval."

A long history of Western intervention in Chinese affairs coupled with recent U.S. assistance to the Nationalists reinforced Mao's expectation of U.S. intervention.

  Chinese sources show that Mao was a committed Marxist - even if he knew little of the details of Marxist theory. But he naturally appreciated the Marxist justification for despotic centralist control - something that was well in line with traditional Chinese governance practices. He viewed the U.S. in Marxist terms as his inevitable major adversary, and readily looked to Moscow for support. Despite several disappointments with Stalin's policies towards him, he remained devoted to the Soviet leader.
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  In Washington, the primary fear was of being sucked into a quagmire with an incompetent Chinese Nationalist regime that could not possibly win. Thus, while aid continued to flow to Chiang Kai-shek, efforts were also made to bring the two forces together to peacefully govern China - something that was simply not going to happen.
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  Chinese history and Marxist theory both led Mao to expect major U.S. intervention against his new regime. A long history of Western intervention in Chinese affairs coupled with recent U.S. assistance to the Nationalists reinforced this interpretation. His lack of understanding of U.S. democracy led him to believe that "all pronouncements by prominent Americans -- whether generals in Tokyo, or right-wing political hacks on the floor of Congress, or perfervid editorials in the China Lobby press -- [reflected] the views of the current emperor in Washington, who happened to be that improbable Missouri mandarin Harry Truman."

  "Mao had no way to distinguish official policy from irresponsible rhetoric, of which there was plenty in Washington in those days. Had Chinese intelligence capabilities been better he might have avoided such oversimplifications, but these were largely limited at the  time to Soviet [and Western news sources]."

  Stalin, too, feared that the U.S. might intervene - initiating a war for which he was not yet prepared. These fears, too, were conveyed to Mao.
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  The U.S. fallback policy after the Chinese communist victory was to try to emphasize the differences between China and the Soviet Union and to try to keep them from acting in concert against the West. While this policy failed initially - particularly with respect to the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam - it ultimately succeeded. Until Mao became more concerned about the very real threats posed by the Soviet Union across his long northern border than with the theoretical threats posed by the U.S., there was no way for the U.S. to approach him to establish peaceful relations.

  "From the sources [now available], it appears that Mao had long since written off any serious possibility of cooperation with the United States. He was prepared to tolerate occasional contacts with the Americans, but more for the purpose of attempting to discern when and where the attack he expected was likely to come than from any desire for friendly relations."

  ""There is no little irony in the fact that by the end of his life Mao had found it necessary to invite the Americans back into China to counterbalance the Russians" whom he had invited in initially because of an unfounded fear of a U.S. attack. That Richard M. Nixon should turn out to be the instrument of this reversal makes this result all the more improbable. "The Chairman was not far-sighted in all things," Gaddis concludes.
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  Thus, Mao went out of his way to assure Stalin of his loyalty, and bitterly denounced Tito. He made his intentions to favor the Soviet Union - "to lean to one side" against the U.S. - crystal clear. His trip to Moscow to celebrate Stalin's 70th birthday - although far from smooth - resulted in the 1950 Sino-Soviet defense treaty.
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The Korean War:

It was impossible for Kim to even contemplate such a conflict without material support and Stalin's blessings.

  Gaddis concludes further that these initial decisions and the subsequent decisions of all the major participants were based on faulty perceptions about their antagonists and invariably brought unanticipated results. The Korean conflict proceeded like a giant, bloody game of blind-man's buff. Ideology persistently distorted reality in the eyes of the antagonists.
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  With opportunities for further communist expansion in Europe having been frustrated, Stalin was now looking to Asia where his new Chinese Communist ally might have further opportunities. Both Korea and Vietnam, along with the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, seemed like ripe opportunities for communism to ride nationalistic aspirations to further victories.
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  Also, there was Stalin's opportunism - "his tendency to advance in situations where he thought he could do so without provoking too strong a response." When the U.S. withdrew its troops from South Korea and indicated that South Korea was not one of its prime interests, it looked to Stalin like ripe fruit.
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  Suddenly - coincidentally with success in the Soviet nuclear program - Stalin was ready to take a more aggressive approach in the Cold War. When Kim Il-sung again urged an attack upon South Korea, as he had already done numerous times, Stalin was ready to accept. Soviet officials now believed that the South had little hope of American assistance.
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  This first major miscalculation was not that strange. The U.S., after all, had not intervened on behalf of the Chinese Nationalists - arguably a vastly more important ally. Syngman Rhee, himself, doubted that he could expect U.S. assistance if attacked. The North Koreans were "absolutely sure" the U.S. would not intervene. Mao was consulted, but was more cautious. Still, Stalin made it clear that the operation could not proceed without the approval and support of Mao.  (These consultations, of course, although not constituting "an international communist monolith controlled from Moscow," did constitute that worldwide communist conspiracy led by Moscow that some left wing ideologues spent much effort stupidly denying.)
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  Kim gained the support of the two communist giants by visiting them both and exaggerating to each the enthusiasm of the other for the adventure. He professed unconcern about the situation even if the U.S. did intervene, since he expected uprisings in his favor in the South and a victory too quick for the U.S. to reply effectively.
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  The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, too, was deep in miscalculation. As late as June 19, 1950, it concluded that a North Korean assault had been contemplated but called off.
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  The swiftness and decisiveness of the U.S. intervention surprised the whole world. The surprise attack revived memories of the world's failure to respond to the Japanese takeover of Manchuria in 1931 and the abandonment of Czechoslovakia at Munich in 1938. This "first overt military assault across an internationally recognized boundary since the end of World War II" simply had to be resisted lest the mistakes of WW-II be repeated.

  "[Nothing] could have been better calculated to provoke a sharp American response than what Kim Il-sung persuaded Stalin and Mao to let him do."

  Gaddis believes Kim might have succeeded if he had proceeded like Ho Chi Minh did later in Vietnam by infiltration and revolution. However, such revolutions are far more difficult in northern nations like Korea where harsh winters tie armies to supply bases that must be defended, and there is only one border, in the north, across which to seek shelter.

  Gaddis makes short work of a variety of conspiracy theories about the conflict.

  "Finally, the new Soviet and Chinese sources pin down a chain of causation for the Korean War that requires neither speculation about 'hidden' histories nor the insistence that there can never be unintended consequences. As Stalin himself demonstrated more than once during the early Cold War, blunders of an adversary can at times accomplish as much as one's own actions in resolving one's own dilemmas."

Mao viewed Korea as a good battlefield on which to confront the U.S. in a battle of attrition.

  The Korean War resulted in a substantial setback for the strategic objectives of both communist giants. Not only did the U.S. intervene effectively in Korea, but it tripled its defense budget and extended its Pacific defensive perimeter to include Taiwan. This unexpectedly undermined Mao's plans - already well under way and with Soviet air support already being deployed along the Chinese coastline - for an invasion of that island. Mao, in turn, again misinterpreted U.S. actions, viewing them as the beginning of a concerted U.S. attack on China rather than as defensive deployments.
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  Even worse for Stalin, the U.S. decided to station troops permanently in Europe - and to rearm West Germany - in the mistaken belief that the attack in Korea was a prelude to a Soviet attack in Europe or the Middle East.

  "It is difficult to see what relationship there could possibly have been between the intentions Stalin had in mind when he told Kim Il-sung to go ahead, and the consequences this short-sighted action in time produced."

  Mao began immediately - well before MacArthur's Inchon landing - to prepare to commit large forces to Korea. He viewed Korea as a good battlefield on which to confront the U.S. in a battle of attrition. "They have many fewer people than we do," he pointedly stated. He even warned Kim Il-sung to expect a landing at Inchon, but was ignored.
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  There proceeded an interesting correspondence between the Chinese and the Soviets during which the Chinese expressed reluctance to enter the fray - but as soon as Moscow promised air and material support, all doubts suddenly vanished. Stalin was satisfied - as long as it would be Chinese troops that would be doing the actual fighting.
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  Indeed, the author concludes that Stalin's stinginess in providing the promised support provoked "the first signs of disillusionment on Mao's part" with his Soviet ally. Material support came as a business transaction - to be paid for - not as a contribution to a mutual effort.

  "Mao from this time on became considerably more cautious about relying on Moscow's help, and considerably less deferential to Moscow's authority."

  Gaddis views these Third World conflicts as irrational - costing much blood and treasure over peripheral areas. However, morale is a real factor in conflicts - both hot and cold - and the failure of the U.S. to respond in Korea and the Taiwan Straits could well have led Stalin to miscalculate in more dangerous regions - like Europe or the Middle Eastern states along the southern border of the Soviet Empire.
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  After all, that is exactly what happened with Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo. Moreover, even a cursory glance at a map showing the relationship between Japan and South Korea is more than enough to demonstrate that South Korea was far from being strategically insignificant.

Nuclear weapons:

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  Weapons don't make wars. People make wars. The ambitious and pugnacious people responsible for the great wars of the first half of the 20th century would have marched off to war with the best weapons at hand - whatever they might have been.
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  The Kaiser did not need aircraft or tanks to destroy the Russian army in WW-I. The Japanese had fully developed war plans for dealing with the U.S. Pacific Fleet well before aircraft carriers became the principle focus of naval tactics.

  A new rationality was forced on the leaders of the great powers. As nuclear weapons became more devastating, the author points out, they became less usable. Thus, "the ultimate instrument of war became, during the Cold War at least, the ultimate inducement to peace."

  Gaddis is not quite right, here. The Cold War was, in fact, a great world wide conflict - with millions of casualties, vast wastage of resources, and untold human suffering. We did not avoid WW-III of the 20th century during the Cold War. In fact, it was WW-III.
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  What nuclear weapons did was to bring to an end the age of unlimited war that had begun with the Napoleonic Wars a century and a half earlier. The Cold War was a limited war - like the vast majority of conflicts in the years preceding Napoleon. For lack of will or capability, the primary antagonists in limited wars seek advantages at the peripheries rather than seeking destruction of the regime of the primary antagonist.

The U.S. simply could not use these weapons except in response to a major attack.

  The familiar story of the development of the atomic bomb and its use to end WW-II is set forth by Gaddis. He then relates the not so familiar story of the difficulty a nation like the U.S. had in deciding after WW-II what role, if any, these awesome weapons might have. The U.S. simply could not use these weapons except in response to a major attack.
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  Yet, reliance on nuclear weapons became inevitable due to the rapid demobilization after WW-II. (This is a traditional U.S. response to the end of conflicts - always easily powerful enough to make the "military-industrial complex" melt away.) Their possession, the author notes, probably enabled a largely disarmed U.S. to accept the risks involved in defending Berlin, encouraging the establishment of an independent German state, and establishing NATO.
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  The major role that Soviet spies played in facilitating the Soviet Union's nuclear program is confirmed by Gaddis. That Western governments and intellectual and scientific communities had been widely penetrated by Soviet spies was no illusion. However, by the time the Soviets turned their attention to the hydrogen bomb, no such assistance was needed.
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A U.S. decision not to proceed with the hydrogen bomb, Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov confirmed, would have been considered either a cunning trap or weakness and stupidity that the Soviets could take advantage of.

  Indeed, Stalin began work on his thermonuclear program before the U.S., Gaddis confirms. This puts to rest left wing contentions that the U.S. decision sparked an escalation in the arms race. A U.S. decision not to proceed, Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov confirmed, would have been considered either a cunning trap or weakness and stupidity that the Soviets could take advantage of. There was no soul searching about this decision within Stalin's government.

  "Washington officials never transformed their atomic monopoly into an effective instrument of peacetime coercion. Had the roles been reversed, it is unlikely that Stalin would have had such difficulties."

  However, although they never had them as a monopoly, once the Soviets had obtained nuclear weapons, they, too, found little practical use for them. The response of the U.S. to the end of its nuclear monopoly was a major rearmament program so that the U.S. would have some alternatives other than total nuclear war or capitulation.
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  Stalin pointedly decided to ignore the threat of U.S. nuclear weapons as he pursued his plans after WW-II. Although he participated in negotiations concerning methods to control nuclear weapons, the two sides were never close to an agreement. The U.S. wanted international control of all nuclear weapons facilities prior to relinquishing nuclear technology information, while the Soviets wanted destruction of all nuclear weapons without any controls on nuclear proliferation.
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  The Korean conflict established the precedent that hot wars during the Cold War would be confined to local theaters, and never permitted to escalate into a direct confrontation between the nuclear powers. Here was the primary military impact of nuclear weapons.
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 The Cold War would be carefully maintained as a limited war. Stalin would permit North Korea to fall if the Chinese did not intervene - and he would carefully confine Soviet military assistance for the Chinese to deniable air support. He would not permit Soviet troops to directly confront U.S. troops on the Korean battleground.
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  And the U.S. would not make an issue of Soviet air support and other involvement, and would avoid use of nuclear weapons if at all possible. Its U.N. allies would insist upon this.
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  But Stalin's successors saw many advantages in reducing tensions with the West - and that could not be accomplished without some resolution of the Korean conflict. Because of Walter Ulbricht's disastrous efforts at forced industrialization and collectivization, they faced economic disintegration and collapse in East Germany. They still had to sort out their own succession problems, and did not need a war to complicate matters.
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  Mao and Kim were ready to accept this decision. The economic strain was considerable, and they had by this time had a bellyful of the conflict - as had the U.S. Although he had not dealt the decisive blow against the U.N. forces that he expected, Mao could well boast that his armies had faced those of the U.S. and held their own.
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Germany:

  Stalin's strategic plans for ultimate communist dominance in West Germany were undermined by his tactical activities everywhere else.

  "The Soviet Union was not winning friends among Germans anywhere by allowing its army to rape women, pillage property, indiscriminately extract reparations, or unilaterally transfer large portions of prewar territory to the Poles."

  Meanwhile, Gen. Lucius Clay, in command on the scene, ignored sometimes punitive directives from Washington and encouraged rehabilitation. George Kennan, in the State Department, finally provided some clear thinking on the matter.

  "We have no choice but to lead our section of Germany -- the section of which we and the British have accepted responsibility -- to a form of independence so prosperous, so secure, so superior, that the East cannot threaten it."

  This view was accepted first by the British - for whom balance of powers strategy was familiar territory. Sec. of State Marshall - after suffering through forty three unproductive negotiating sessions with Molotov that failed to produce a basis for total reunification - ultimately accepted the wisdom of the Kennan view.
 &

  It was Stalin who remained unrealistic.

  "Stalin was loath to abandon reunification: he appears to have clung, almost to the end of his life, to the illusion that ideology sooner or later would override nationalism and bring all Germans, by their own choice, into the socialist camp. But this was, yet again, an example of romanticism residing within authoritarianism. In the light of what was happening in western Germany at the time, it was never a realistic strategy."

  Plans for a rehabilitated and rearmed West Germany within a European Defense Community alongside a robust NATO alliance matured with the advent of the Korean War. West Germany joined NATO in 1955 when French opposition undermined the European Defense Community plan.
 &
  Stalin had been the cause for this manifestation of his worst foreign policy fears. Just before his death, Stalin approved one last attempt to prevent the incorporation of West Germany into Western defense arrangements. In March, 1952, he proposed free elections throughout Germany to establish an independent, reunified, rearmed, but neutral state.
 &
  Soviet sources now reveal that this was only a tactical ploy that Stalin approved only after assurances that the West would reject it. He was still determined to agree to nothing less than a socialist Germany under Soviet control. This was no "missed opportunity," as several historians have tried to argue. Both sides understood the proposal as just a ploy to undermine popular support for Western plans, and serious negotiations on the matter were never forthcoming.
 &
  Recently available sources indicate that the same was true for the 1957 Rapacki Plan, for a nuclear-free zone and withdrawal of U.S. and USSR forces from Central Europe.
 &

The Soviet Union was becoming increasingly tied to and financially hobbled by its weak satellites.

  By the time of Stalin's death, the positions in Germany had hardened. A reunification plan devised by secret police chief Laverentii Beria was designed to free the Soviet Union of its burdens in East Germany while removing West Germany as a part of Western defense arrangements. However, this plan was used against him in the subsequent treason trial that led to his death, and never surfaced as a Soviet proposal.
 &
  The Soviet bosses could not contemplate a retreat from East Germany. The Soviet Union was becoming increasingly tied to and financially hobbled by its weak satellites.
 &
  Eisenhower administration speculation about the possibilities for some compromise were quickly doused. As a Dulles cable stated during four-power talks early in 1954:

  "Molotov made [his] German proposal so extreme, calling in effect for complete Sovietization [of] all Germany and withdrawal [of Western] forces, that we believe Western position has been greatly strengthened by exhibition of his uncompromising approach."

  Gaddis views Konrad Adenauer as the key player in this rehabilitation of West Germany. His political strength within West Germany and his consistent Western orientation increased the confidence of his allies and made him seem to them like an indispensable man whose initiatives were to be considered favorably.

  "The continued division of Germany was, therefore, a convenient, perhaps even a comfortable option for the Americans, the Russians, and their respective allies; however illogical the post-1945 map of that country might be, the statesmen of 1955 had come to prefer it over other alternatives."

Between 1945 and 1961, "approximately one sixth of all East Germans departed for the West, most of them through Berlin."

The Berlin Wall successfully stabilized this dangerously unstable situation - to the great relief of all sides - including the U.S. and West Germany.

  But this situation was both asymmetrical and unstable - as George Kennan shrewdly pointed out. In particular, the situation in Berlin was a bleeding sore for the East Germans. Between 1945 and 1961, "approximately one sixth of all East Germans departed for the West, most of them through Berlin." A large percentage of these were young professionals and skilled workers that East Germany desperately needed.
 &
  Khrushchev and Ulbricht thrashed about - issuing dangerous ultimatums - trying to force a favorable resolution to this problem. Gaddis provides illuminating details of this crisis - that dragged on into the Kennedy administration. Both sides were ready to go to war over Berlin - but fortunately neither side was willing to initiate a war over that issue. When Kennedy announced a major military buildup in response to his early reversals in Cuba and the growing tension over Berlin, he touched off an arms race.
 &
  Khrushchev had responded to Soviet financial problems with cutbacks in conventional armaments. This policy became one more unexpected casualty of Soviet efforts to intimidate the West. Khrushchev also had growing problems with China to worry about. Now, talk about a wall dividing Berlin touched off a massive rush of East Germans to get out - and precipitated the building of the Wall.
 &
  In the event, although there were dangerous gestures - and a face off of tanks in the narrow street at Checkpoint Charley - the Berlin Wall successfully stabilized this dangerously unstable situation - to the great relief of all sides - including the U.S. and West Germany. Indeed, U.S. signals that preceded the erection of the Wall clearly indicated that its response would be purely propagandistic. Neither Khrushchev nor Kennedy wanted nuclear war over Berlin.
 &

The Third World:

&

Stalin arranged for Communist China to take the lead in exploiting opportunities in the Third World, with Soviet guidance and material support.

  Efforts to encourage the transition from colonialism to independence frequently threatened to produce instability that communist forces could exploit. At first, Stalin was wary of supporting revolutionary movements that he might not be able to control. However, after Mao's victory in China in 1949, he began to actively try to exploit Third World opportunities. He arranged for the Chinese to take the lead in these matters, with Soviet guidance and material support. As a Chinese official recalled:

    "As a result, Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi soon began work on original strategy and tactics for the revolutionary movement in the Asian countries."

  Ho Chi Minh was an early beneficiary of this support. He was receiving military assistance and Chinese advisers even before the outbreak of war in Korea - even as the U.S. was providing assistance to the French. With the end of the Korean War, Chinese military assistance greatly increased, materially aiding in the Viet Minh victory at Dien Bien Phu.
 &
  But Mao was as cautious about possible U.S. intervention and  confrontation in Vietnam as Stalin had been earlier in Korea. Mao was also beginning to recognize some of the benefits of getting along with the West. He persuaded the Viet Minh to accept the temporary arrangement of a divided Vietnam. As Zhou Enlai explained, Vietnam could be united later, perhaps without further conflict.

  "In Southeast Asia, then, there was some basis for Western fears of an orchestrated campaign, directed from Moscow and Beijing, aimed at exploiting anti-colonial grievances. Stalin specifically encouraged the Chinese to aid Ho Chi Minh, and the assistance they provided the Viet Minh may well have been decisive in defeating the French."

  However, in the Middle East, Stalin's efforts to dominate territory in Iran and the Turkish Straits - and his insistence on dominating communist parties - were ham-handed. They initially undermined Soviet efforts to take advantage of Western weaknesses over colonial interests and the establishment of Israel. This was similar to results in Europe.
 &
  Gaddis provides details about three key events during this period: the establishment of Israel, the Egyptian coup of 1952, and the CIA-sponsored coup in Iran in 1953. In all three cases, the Soviet Union misjudged the situation and thus angered nationalist movements that they might better have exploited.
 &
  But it was the West that was ham-handed in its handling of Egypt's Gamal Abdul Nasser. The author concludes that U.S. policy failures probably played a major role in Nasser's eventual establishment of ties to the Soviet Union. Eisenhower administration policy - under the primary direction of Sec. of State John Foster Dulles - rejected Nasser's efforts to play the U.S. off against the Soviet Union - and badly underestimated the consequences.
 &
  By this time, Khrushchev was in power in Moscow. Unlike Stalin, he looked very favorably on exploiting nationalist movements in Third World nations, and did not insist on total dominance of client states. By 1956, Nasser was causing trouble for the West throughout the Middle East - culminating in the nationalization of the Suez Canal.
 &

  Gaddis notes that there is as yet no evidence that the U.S. had any advance knowledge of the British, French and Israeli attack on the Suez Canal. When the attack forced a decision, "Eisenhower and Dulles came down, with instant decisiveness, on the side of the Egyptians," at tremendous cost to allied relationships and significant political risk just ahead of a presidential election.
 &
  Nevertheless, it was the Soviet Union that gained influence in the Middle East as a result of these events. After the cease-fire and pull-back decisions were made, but just before they were announced, the Soviets rattled their nuclear missiles and thus claimed credit for the results. Nasser knew the truth, but was willing to go along with the Soviet deception.
 &
  By 1958 - after the brief U.S. incursion into Lebanon - Eisenhower finally recognized that Arab nationalism was a fact of life in the Middle East that the U.S. would have to accept at least whenever that did not run counter to basic U.S. interests. The author accepts the view that Nasser's sympathies were actually always with the West - that he invited Soviet influence into Egypt only because of Western opposition to his nationalistic ambitions. Nasser always firmly opposed Egyptian communists.

  "Determined to force a Cold War frame of reference on a region more concerned with resisting imperialism than containing communism, Dulles deadened his own sensitivities to nationalism, thereby opening opportunities for the Soviet Union, which would retain significant presence in Egypt for the next decade and a half and elsewhere in the Middle East for another decade and a half after that."

  Dulles' doomed efforts to stand in the way of Arab nationalism "transformed his own country into the new imperial power in the Middle East in what he knew to be a post-imperial age."

  The failure of Dulles' policies in the Middle East is beyond dispute, but Gaddis is probably overstating his case against Dulles, here. Given the extent of Nasser's ambitions and the existing goals of Arab nationalism, it is impossible to believe that the Soviet Union would not in any case have found ample opportunities for extending its influence into the Middle East.

  In Cuba, the U.S. was initially inclined to accept Fidel Castro as a legitimate leader of the Cuban nation. This was in stark contrast to its reaction in 1954 to Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala.
 &
  Arbenz was sympathetic to communism and sought assistance from the Soviet Union, but without success. It is Gaddis' view that Arbenz had made so many influential enemies in Guatemala by 1954, that the CIA coup was unnecessary and was a mistake. It broadly undermined U.S. influence in Latin America - and had an impact on the plans of both Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
 &

For Castro, Marxist-Leninist theory was primarily a convenient justification for grabbing and maintaining absolute power, and was convenient for gaining support from the Soviet Union.

  Castro, however, was anti-American from the start. His brother, Raúl, and Che, were both avowed Marxists. The author believes that, for Castro, Marxist-Leninist theory was primarily a convenient justification for grabbing and maintaining absolute power, and was convenient for gaining support from the Soviet Union.

  "We can now see that [Castro] was much closer, in temperament, priorities, and style of leadership, to Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh than to Tito, Nehru, and Nasser. The latter group were balancers: the ideologies they proclaimed only occasionally dictated their actions; non-alignment allowed them to tilt this way or that, thereby playing both sides in the Cold War off against one another. Mao and Ho, conversely, were bandwagoners: ideology told them the direction in which history was moving, and they were determined to climb aboard -- or even, in Mao's case after Stalin's death, to take the driver's seat."

  Gaddis concludes that it had never been really possible for Washington to get along with Castro.
 &
  By 1960, when Anastas Mikoyan arrived in Cuba to assess the situation, the Cuban government had become the stuff of an old Bolshevist's dreams. This was the first time a nation had gone communist without the assistance of the Red Army, and it brightened the hearts of the communist ideologues in Moscow. They had found a willing partner to spread revolution to Latin America.
 &

  In Moscow, Khrushchev was exuberantly optimistic. Capitalism and colonialism were collapsing, he pronounced, and "the triumph of socialism and communism" was taking place "on a world scale." The socialist camp's military strength was now sufficient to prevent the capitalist nation's from again resorting to a world war to protect their interests, but "national liberation wars" could - and would - flare up against them, and the communists would fully support those wars.
 &
  As Castro and the Soviets moved to solidify their relationship, Eisenhower responded to these growing threats by setting in motion the effort to topple Castro. When John F. Kennedy became President, he was influenced by the pessimism in academic circles. In the third world, JFK believed, history was indeed running in favor of the communists.
 &
  But Castro was no Arbenz. The decision to proceed with the Bay of Pigs expedition - half heartedly - without naval or air support - was a disaster that substantially strengthened Castro's position. Gaddis declines to offer an opinion on whether it could have been otherwise.

  "Whether Eisenhower would have handled the project differently, or whether, had Kennedy himself done so, it would have produced the intended result, is difficult to say."

  The most serious result was a greatly weakened position for Kennedy in his dealings with Khrushchev. At their first meeting in Vienna in June, 1961, Kennedy made a very poor showing. However, Khrushchev was hardly as confident as he pretended to be. He had been left with no illusions about the vulnerability of his position in Cuba.
 &

  Gaddis offers several conclusions about the Cold War in the third world.

• Dominoes did indeed fall - in East Asia - after the triumph of the Chinese Communists. Chinese support was critical for communist success in Vietnam - which in turn led to communist regimes in Laos and Cambodia. (It also caused a great deal of trouble in Korea and elsewhere in East Asia, where communist insurgencies were eventually - but with no little difficulty - turned back.) But there were no such domino effects in the Middle East, where Soviet influence grew but never displaced Arab nationalism - or in Latin America, where Castro failed to find fertile ground in which to spread his revolution.
• Simplistic theories about U.S. interests and strategy during the Cold War inevitably imply a coherence that in fact did not exist. The U.S. both opposed colonialism and yet frequently supported colonial interests. The U.S. was concerned about its economic interests, but was also concerned with other - frequently competing - interests like "military credibility, alliance solidarity, humanitarianism, fear of communism, irritation at anti-Americanism."
• Soviet policy was never as cold and calculating as many believed. The decisionmaking processes of such despotisms "discouraged realism and exaggerated emotion: If Stalin, Mao or Khrushchev felt strongly about something, who was to challenge them?" Ideological romanticism was evident in Stalin's acceptance of Mao - who was a clear potential rival for influence in the communist world. Mao fatally undermined his chances of taking Taiwan by supporting "beleaguered comrades" in North Korea and northern Vietnam. The disastrous Great Cultural Revolution would be another example of Mao's ideological romanticism. An aging Brezhnev would fatally overextend the Soviet Union with adventures in Angola, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan.

  "What links these episodes is a pattern of geriatric over-exertion: the efforts of old revolutionaries, for reasons more sentimental than rational, to rediscover their roots, to convince themselves that the purposes for which they had sacrificed so much in seizing power had not been totally overwhelmed by the compromises they had had to make in actually wielding power."

• It is wrong to apply the 20/20 hindsight of history when judging the actions of men who had to act in real time situations - inevitably on the basis of very incomplete information. Before the event, nobody can really know how far revolutionary movements are going to spread.

  "It would be the height of arrogance for historians to condemn those who made history for not having availed themselves of histories yet to be written. Nightmares always seem real at the time -- even if, in the clear light of dawn, a little ridiculous."

  The durability of national, cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic particularities of the disparate "third world" nations have become crystal clear with the end of the Cold War. But that just means that they must have been there all along during the Cold War -as they had been for centuries before. "They ensured that the 'third world' would find its own way whatever cold warriors in Washington or Moscow did."
 &
  And the Cold War itself - as well as the character of the Russian and Chinese governments themselves - would ultimately depend more on the impossibility of socialist economics, and political responses to growing financial and economic difficulties, than on communist ideology.
 &

The fatal flaw:

 There were in fact "internal contradictions" of historic proportions - but they existed in communism, not capitalism, Gaddis points out.

  "It became clear for the first time that the Soviet Union and its allies could maintain authoritarian leadership -- a fundamental requirement in Marxist-Leninist states -- only by means that ensured economic obsolescence. Reforms intended to restore competitiveness shattered authority, both internally and within the international communist movement. This was, it turned out, rather more than a contradiction: it was a fatal flaw."

  Gaddis accepts the conventional wisdom that Keynesian policies came along after WW-II just in time to stabilize inherently unstable capitalist systems. This is more than just dubious - it is clearly fallacious - and ignores the clear failure of Keynesian policies when finally given a real test during the 1970s. They are being widely relied upon today, and again are failing or will fail just as badly.
 &
  WW-II ended the Great Depression not by Keynesian expenditures of vast sums, but by ending the disastrous trade wars of the previous two decades, thus permitting the restoration of international trade flows essential for prosperity. The final abandonment of WW-I debts was also a major factor.

Gaddis acknowledges -  just a few pages after his remarks about Keynes - that trade liberalization policies were the factors that were primarily responsible for the postwar prosperity.

  The Bretton Woods -- Marshall Plan policies ended prewar trade war protectionist practices - established stable currency exchange rates - established international financial institutions - and liberalized international trade. Gaddis acknowledges -  just a few pages after his remarks about Keynes - that these were the factors that were primarily responsible for the postwar prosperity. He quotes Henry R. Nau:

  "The premise of freer trade ensured competition, especially for smaller countries; the premise of price stability ensured a stable environment for domestic investment and stable exchange rates for expanding trade; and the premise of flexible domestic economies ensured prompt adjustment to changing market conditions and comparative advantage."

  What did the trick, the author acknowledges, was the "lubrication" of previously inflexible market mechanisms.
 &

The U.S. promoted European integration and German and Japanese rehabilitation despite the knowledge that this would also reestablish future economic competitors.

  However, the world view that predominated in the communist camp was always based on an expectation that internal contradictions would lead to ruinous economic competition and disastrous conflicts among the capitalist states. Even as the West coalesced under Washington hegemony to fend of communism and construct increasingly liberal trading systems, communist rulers and ideologues confidently awaited the capitalist collapse and the conflicts promised by Marx and Lenin.

  "These ideas are remarkable for what they reveal of how ideology can obscure reality in authoritarian systems. They certainly confirm the doubts Kennan had raised in 1946 about the Soviet government's capacity for objective judgment: 'who, if anyone, in this great land actually receives accurate and unbiased information about the outside world[?]'"

  The U.S. gained clearly disproportionate power in the capitalist world. However, it unexpectedly used it not for immediate gains, but to obtain long-term geopolitical stabilization. The leaders of the capitalist world had actually learned something from the Great Depression and the great conflicts of the 20th century, and were determined to avoid such mistakes in the future.
 &
  The U.S. promoted European integration and German and Japanese rehabilitation despite the knowledge that this would also reestablish future economic competitors. Indeed, the U.S. "allowed its own exploitation by opening its markets to the products of countries it considered geopolitically vital, even as it tolerated discrimination from them against its own." It proved remarkably tolerant of socialist experiments in Europe and imperial prerogatives in Japan.

  Nations gain both ways from international trade - from both imports and exports. This was decisively explained by Adam Smith over two centuries ago. Only those ignorant of economics can talk of imports as "exploitation." Mercantilist protectionist policies are based on such ignorance.

  But most important was the Soviet threat. Stalin could never understand that he himself - by presenting a "clear and present danger" - was the primary driving force for U.S. acceptance of an international leadership role - Western acceptance of U.S. leadership - and for the practical reforms and coherence among the capitalist states that contradicted Leninist assumptions.
 &

The U.S. encouraged European integration - especially as a part of the Marshall Plan - but the actual execution of that policy was largely a European project.

  But there was little of U.S. design in the Cold War tactics that proved so successful in achieving those strategic goals. Gaddis points out that reliance in Germany and Japan on democratization, economic rehabilitation and capitalism was not decreed from Washington. This was the result of the gut instincts of the U.S. commanders on the scene - MacArthur and Clay. The existence and shape of NATO came from the collective inputs of the European allies. The U.S. encouraged European integration - especially as a part of the Marshall Plan - but the actual execution of that policy was largely a European project.
 &
  In fact, the U.S. found itself in such an unaccustomed leadership position after WW-II, that there was really little understanding in Washington as to how they were to lead. Thus, a variety of initiatives that were morally acceptable and appeared likely to work were tried. Inevitably, there were some false starts and failures, but the ideological instincts that favored democracy, capitalism and cooperation and accommodation proved to be outstanding successes. "Realist" theories cannot explain this, but democratic theories can.

  "Truman and Eisenhower handled NATO much as they did the Congress of the United States: by cutting deals instead of imposing wills."

Soviet influence could only extend as far as it could be imposed by brute force, and it ended where - and when - that brute force ended.

  Stalin, however, could accept nothing but dominance. As soon as he experienced any resistance on anything, he attempted to smother it rather than compromise with it.
 &
  Thus, Soviet influence could only extend as far as it could be imposed by brute force, and it ended where - and when - that brute force ended. Tito, and later Mao, would leave the Soviet orbit because Soviet power could not be applied to them. The Soviet Union and its empire would collapse as soon as that brute force became financially undermined and was withdrawn.
 &
  This lack of willing support - among both leaders and the people - may not have bothered Stalin, but it was a primary concern of Khrushchev. But even he believed in "top-down" Leninist leadership. As with Stalin, Mao (and Hitler and the Japanese militarists), there would be no policy initiatives in response to existing conditions other than those the leader could himself control. Central planning did not permit those on the ground to take local conditions into account.
 &
  And most important of all - any substantial effort at reform of the Soviet System to deal with its many contradictions could - and ultimately did - mean the collapse of the entire system. (Today, it is Communist China that uncertainly balances between needed economic reforms and the maintenance of  centralized political control.)
 &

France was far more important to NATO than Hungary was to the Warsaw Pact, but the U.S. response was to adapt flexibly to the new reality, and ultimately to gain willing French cooperation with NATO, even as the French remained formally detached.

  For Khrushchev, initial efforts at de-Stalinization - initial efforts to relinquish the instruments of terror - brought instant trouble - first in Poland and then in Hungary. He resolved the former problem by compromise - a significant advance from Stalinist technique. However, in Hungary - to prevent that nation from leaving the Warsaw Pact - he was forced to use the Red Army - something Stalin had never had to resort to.

  "[Khrushchev] had to be ruthless to hold his alliance together. He had hoped to make Marxism-Leninism attractive enough that Stalinist methods would not be needed to ensure its unity; but even the briefest experiment with de-Stalinization had set off centrifugal tendencies in Eastern Europe that ended in a bloodbath."

  Gaddis here misinterprets what Leninism is all about. It is Leninism that accepts and indeed relies on terror as an ordinary means of gaining and maintaining power. Stalin did not hijack Leninism - he was just its most rational and  successful practitioner. So terrorized were those around him and in his client states, that he never had to use the Red Army to keep them in check.

  The author compares the Soviet response when Hungary tried to leave the Warsaw Pact, to the U.S. response when France, under de Gaulle, actually did leave NATO. France was far more important to NATO than Hungary was to the Warsaw Pact, but the U.S. response was to adapt flexibly to the new reality, and ultimately to gain willing French cooperation with NATO, even as the French remained formally detached.
 &
  The author then draws a conclusion similar to one oft repeated by FUTURECASTS: The power of autocratic systems like those of the Soviet Union and other Leninist party despotisms may be hard - but it is always brittle. Inherently inflexible in the face of changing conditions, they can shatter remarkably easily under strain.
 &

Mao's ideological stupidity was starkly revealed by his Great Leap Forward policy - which probably all by itself made him the greatest mass murderer of all time.

  China, of course, could not be influenced by the Red Army. In an entirely different manner, Khrushchev's policies and his denunciation of Stalin first began to cost Moscow its influence over China and then began to divide the two communist giants.
 &
  Mao and Khrushchev simply did not like each other. By the end of Khrushchev's reign, the two had drifted so far apart, that the Soviet Union was sounding out the U.S. for possible cooperation in conducting a preemptive strike against China before the latter could develop its nuclear capabilities.
 &
  Gaddis explains this process - the importance of the Stalinist myth to Mao - and the ideological reasons behind Mao's disastrous Great Leap Forward. This latter policy and the famine it caused, the author points out, probably all by itself made Mao the greatest mass murderer of all time.
 &
  But Khrushchev, too, was in denial about the disastrous course of communist economics. He, too, decided to announce lofty economic goals that were totally without basis in reality. By sheer will, he would "bury" the capitalist world.

  "The Soviet economy by then was in serious trouble; Khrushchev had made his projections against the advice of his own planners. Simply proclaiming lofty goals, he and Mao appear to have believed, would overcome all difficulties: the will of the people was what counted; professional expertise was not required. Both leaders, in this sense, were like frogs at the bottom of wells, aspiring to reach the sky but with no idea of how to get there."

  In both nations, it was the limitations of rigid autocratic central planning and socialist ideology that would make progress impossible.
 &

Nuclear standoff:

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The use of devastating numbers of nuclear weapons - "massive retaliation" - must be actively relied upon from the outset - in order to make such a conflict unthinkable.

  Scientists on both sides were appalled by the advent of thermonuclear weapons. In the West, Churchill and Eisenhower recoiled from their use.
 &
  To Khrushchev, Western squeamishness appeared to open opportunities to bluff - opportunities for nuclear blackmail. (North Korea, today, appears to have reached a similar conclusion.) Eisenhower administration assurances that there would be no NATO response to Soviet actions in Hungary reinforced this belief.
 &
  For six years - from the time of the Suez crisis in 1956 until the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, Khrushchev would repeatedly aggressively rattle his nuclear saber. The author provides some interesting detail on Khrushchev's antic behavior with his nuclear missiles. From the middle of 1956, U-2 flights were beginning to reveal the hollowness of his nuclear Potemkin village.
 &
  Eisenhower could never even think of such tactics - because of public reactions in democratic nations. Khrushchev had no such problems. Ike's knowledge of Khrushchev's "erratic and impulsive" tendencies made him careful but firm in his responses to Khrushchev. While assuring the American public of U.S. superiority, he never directly contradicted Khrushchev's claims. Thus, while Ike and Khrushchev knew how hollow the latter's saber rattling was, Khrushchev could - indeed probably felt he had to - continue it to impress his allies both at home and abroad.
 &
  Khrushchev, too, was under no illusion that such weapons could ever profitably be used. At a 1956 Party Congress, he jettisoned, once and for all, Lenin's doctrine of inevitable war. By 1960, in an unguarded moment, he admitted knowledge of U.S. continued nuclear superiority.
 &
  Ike, an old poker player, was himself not a stranger to the high-stakes bluff. His reaction was that no major conflict could ever be confined to conventional weapons. Thus, the use of devastating numbers of nuclear weapons - "massive retaliation" - must be actively relied upon from the outset - in order to make such a conflict unthinkable.
 &

  Indeed, this reliance on nuclear weapons was most favorable to the Soviets, Gaddis believes, since by 1960 they had already lost the Cold War on the political, economic and ideological battlegrounds. Only their technological accomplishments in rocketry and their nuclear weapons continued to make them look like fearful adversaries to the West.

  Gaddis is not wrong about Soviet problems, but he is nevertheless a bit premature. If the Cold War is looked at as a battle of financial attrition, the Soviets were not the only ones suffering.
 &
  Indeed, the 1970s would see a peak for Soviet post WW-II success - and a nadir for Western economic, political and military strength. By the end of the Carter administration, it looked like the Soviets were actually winning the Cold War despite their economic difficulties - because of the aftermaths of Vietnam and the Keynesian and socialist economic policies that had greatly weakened the West. All the Western powers were afflicted with weak leadership, and the socialist economic model was achieving its most widespread adoption.
 &
  Of course, within just a few years of 1980, all that had dramatically changed for the West due to the natural resiliency of its democratic and capitalist systems - and the continued inherent impossibility of socialist economics.

  Mao was constantly pushing Moscow to support aggressive action against the West to take advantage of their supposed military superiorities, while Moscow had to inexplicably decline and attempt to restrain China. When China decided anyway to bombard Quemoy and Matsu islands in the Taiwan Strait, Moscow declined to offer support.
 &
  Mao thus decided he needed his own atomic bomb and asked Moscow for help. This was at first provided, but as Moscow became increasingly alarmed at Mao's conduct, relations soured and the support was withdrawn. The schism between the two communist giants had matured.

  "The Kremlin boss had become, as one of his biographers has put it, 'the victim of his own missile deception: Chinese leaders believed in the Soviet strategic  advantage no less than the rest of the world, and they could not understand why Khrushchev - - - was so timid in dealing with the West.' The only explanation that made sense, in Beijing, was that he had abandoned Marxism-Leninism altogether -- which gave Mao an excellent reason for abandoning allegiance to Moscow altogether."

  Khrushchev ran into similar difficulties over Berlin. He repeatedly tried to use nuclear bluster over Berlin, only to have to repeatedly back off. To Ulbricht, watching the East German economy bleed away at an accelerating rate through Berlin, this hesitancy was inexplicable.
 &
  It was similarly inexplicable to Castro - as Khrushchev accepted a settlement of the Cuban missile crisis that required the removal of those missiles. Khrushchev was trying to frighten his Western adversaries. However, it was he who was truly frightened, the author points out, by the bellicose reactions of his allies when they believed his assertions of nuclear superiority.
 &
  Ultimately, when Khrushchev resorted to a resumption of nuclear testing - including the testing of a monstrous 50 megaton device - to sustain his ideological and political position, the Kennedy administration felt that it had to reveal the truth, if only to reassure allies. Soviet delivery systems - both aircraft and rockets - were still far inferior to those of the U.S. As Gaddis puts it, Khrushchev's "strategic Potemkinism"  had been exposed for all to see.
 &

The Cuban missile crisis:

• "Khrushchev placed missiles in Cuba - - - because he saw Kennedy as aggressive, not passive."
• "He acted at least as much from an emotional compulsion to save Fidel Castro's revolution as from any calculated determination to correct a strategic imbalance."
• "Kennedy may well have been the most dovish member of his administration -- not a hawk at all -- but he comes across as even more courageous for having taken that stance."
• "Lessons about crisis decision-making that have long ago made their way into the crisis-management textbooks turn out to have been largely irrelevant to the outcome of this one."
• The settlement was "a compromise, not a clear-cut victory for either side."
• The Cubans contributed significantly to bringing about the settlement.
• The result was not a Soviet humiliation. Instead, it bolstered the Soviet image "as an equal to the United States."

  Only the conclusion that both sides drew from the event - that such nuclear risks should never again be run - turns out to be wholly as previously believed.
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  Khrushchev was responding to U.S. saber rattling around Cuba in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs debacle. Castro, Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders all expected that the U.S. would indeed mount a major effort to topple Castro, and were determined to prevent that.
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  The idea of using intermediate range missiles for that purpose came from the U.S. - which had responded to Khrushchev's nuclear saber rattling by posting such missiles in Europe and Turkey. The need to restore the strategic balance, Gaddis points out, was an "important but secondary consideration."
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  The muddled decision-making process that followed between Khrushchev and Castro is explained by the author. Indeed, all parties had muddled up to this point without realizing what the consequences of their actions would be - a not very reassuring preliminary course of events before the crisis. Beginning with the Bay of Pigs expedition, the preliminaries to the Cuban missile crisis had blundering qualities of blind-man's-buff similar to the decision-making blunders in the Korean conflict.
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Khrushchev actually achieved everything he most wanted to achieve - excepting a deployment that would redress the strategic balance of nuclear power.

  So, how close did the antagonists come to nuclear war? In the event, Khrushchev did back down under humiliating circumstances and despite the vociferous complaints of his Cuban allies. However, the deal was not that one sided, since he received secret assurances that U.S. missiles in Turkey would be removed, and a public pledge that there would be no invasion of Cuba. The missiles in Turkey were obsolete and due to be removed in any case - to be replaced by Polaris submarines - but the agreement to end overt U.S. threats against Castro was a major victory for Khrushchev.
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  Thus, Khrushchev actually achieved everything he most wanted to achieve - excepting a deployment that would redress the strategic balance of nuclear power. For that, the Soviets would have to undertake an extensive and costly buildup of its ICBM capabilities.
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  The sources indicate that Kennedy was actually willing to give much more to prevent nuclear war if the actual settlement had not been accepted. If pushed, he would have publicly traded the Turkish missiles for the Soviet missiles in Cuba even without consulting his NATO allies. He apparently was even willing to accept an attack on those missiles in Turkey - a NATO ally - without response - if he ultimately had to attack the Soviet missiles in Cuba and the Soviets appeared satisfied with that limited retaliatory attack
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  Gaddis also sets forth the very real risks of systemic misunderstandings and accidental nuclear launches or explosions, as both sides scrambled into an unfamiliar high alert status. In the event, a U-2 strayed over Siberia. Over Cuba, one was shot down against orders from Moscow, at the height of the crisis. Command and control systems of both antagonists revealed clear weaknesses.
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Soft power impacts in the Cold War:

 These and other conclusions must be tentative - pending further revelations - he cautions.

• Those theorists and "realists" who viewed the Cold War in a simplistic bipolar military power frame of reference were clearly wrong. The Soviet Union collapsed with its military power still essentially intact. But it had collapsed economically, ideologically, culturally and morally. Economics - and the various elements of soft power - matter. (Although not as all-powerful as Marxists would believe, the economic failure was clearly the most influential.)
• While the major nations of the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc - Japan and in Europe - had little say over the fact of Soviet or U.S. domination, they could determine whether that domination would be welcomed or resented and resisted. By exercising this soft power, they materially determined the outcome of the conflict. The pattern was less clear in China and the third world, but it was in Europe and Japan that the Cold War outcome was largely determined.
• The reason for this decisive difference, was that many people "saw the Cold War as a contest of good versus evil, even if historians since have rarely done so." Gaddis emphasizes events in post WW-II Germany. Despite the strength of the Communist party in all sectors and the elevated reputation it had earned as an opponent of the Nazis - the German people were repelled by the thought of Soviet influence and control - not attracted to it as Stalin had hoped. The fact of the brutish conduct of the Red Army counted for more than ideology. Thus, "the West German regime was able to establish itself as a legitimate government while its East German counterpart never did."
• The author also points out that, ultimately, "democracy proved superior to autocracy in maintaining coalitions." Although acknowledging the existence of many departures from democratic practices, the U.S. tied coalition members together by generally remaining true to its democratic instincts in its dealings with them. "Far from being the impractical idealism the 'realists' feared, though, such behavior turned out to be eminently realistic." The democratization of Germany and Japan - the management of the NATO alliance - and the encouragement of European integration are cited as three key policy responses arising from U.S. democratic instincts. The U.S. empire was a "democratic empire," and it consistently resulted in the adoption of realistic policies that proved successful in practice.
• On the other hand, it was Marxism-Leninism that fostered unrealistic world views. These gave rise to an ideological "romanticism" that persistently resulted in ruinous policies. Why else maintain command economies and collectivized agriculture long after failure had been irrefutably proven? (These systems were disastrous economically - but they were a huge success for maintaining total political control of the working population.) Why else would Stalin persist in believing that the Western powers must ultimately fragment and fight each other? Why else could he not see that it was Stalin, himself, that was driving Western coalescence against Stalin. "Stalin imagined one Europe while ensuring, through his actions, that a totally different one would actually evolve." Gaddis points to much else in the conduct of Stalin, Mao, Khrushchev - that seems to indicate a tendency among authoritarians to lose touch with reality - and even to tilt at windmills. "Autocratic systems reinforce, while discouraging attempts to puncture, whatever quixotic illusions may exist at the top."
• Finally, Gaddis confirms that, "as long as Stalin was running the Soviet Union, a cold war was unavoidable."

Two questionable viewpoints:

  First, he assumes that the U.S. was already the world's predominant power at Versailles at the end of WW-I, and that Pres. Wilson thus erred in not striving harder to shape the Peace Treaty and the post WW-I world. See, Keynes, Consequences of the Peace," and MacMillan, "Paris 1919,"  Part I, "Reordering Europe," and Part II, "The Far East, The Middle East, and the Treaty of Versailles."

  U.S. financial strength and continued naval buildup might have made this true by the time of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, but in 1919, the U.S. was still a military pigmy compared to England or France - especially on the ground in Europe where it was rapidly demobilizing. Wilson could have done more, but he did not have sufficient domestic political support to offer the compromises on European war debts that would have been essential to materially influence Allied reparations demands. By 1922, an isolationist, protectionist Republican Party was firmly in control, and was hardly likely to lead the world in a more enlightened direction. Indeed, it was committed to the policies that led to the Great Depression and WW-II.

  This statement totally ignores Lenin's view of Marxism - the view that naturally dominated the Soviet party. Lenin recognized all aspects of Marxist theory as subsidiary to its core requirement - the creation of a totally despotic and ruthlessly tyrannical revolutionary party that could and would use terror to force revolution on the proletariat and chain them to the resulting Soviet utopia. The utopian aspects of Marxist theory were thus reduced to mere enticements for the credulous.
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  Stalin's and Mao's Marxist "romanticism" never deviated from this viewpoint . The gaining and maintaining of power was the core purpose of Marxist-Leninist parties - and terror was an essential aspect of the process.