Friday, April 25, 2008

FDR

I think it is difficult to discount FDR and his actions of interpreted softness towards the soviets. Everyone had two things in mind: keep another war from happening, and do what's best for THEIR country. Some people may argue that FDR should have taken a more hard nose approach to Stalin and the Soviets but that could have produced future conflicts. Maybe Patton was right when he said we should have just kept moving East, but that would have obviously taken a lot and Russia would have been pissed regardless.
Though the cold war may have come as a result of the decisions made by FDR, I dont think he is to blame.
It also leads to a question of whether that is a bad thing. There were no large conflicts as a result of the cold war and there was a long period of relative peace after WWII. Had we tried to take out or diminish the power of the Soviet Union in WWII, given Stalin's policies, I think it could have led to more conflicts.

1 comment:

Justin Sadowski said...

You bring up valid points. And another thing to lend credence to your theory that says that the Cold War may have been hotter if we'd kept moving is the fact that many of the generals, especially Patton, were readying their troops to go and fight the Soviets next. This would have had ... interesting consequences. Perhaps we would have nuked Moscow, without them having the chance to return the favor yet.