Lessons of Diplomacy, Cold War Begins

"Roosevelt's policy was a heady mixture of traditional American exceptionalism, Wilsonian idealism, and Roosevelt's own canny insight into the American psyche, which had always been more attuned to universal causes than to calculations of rewards and penalties."

"Ideology reinforced tradition. Stalin defined the requirements of peace in the same way that Russian statesmen had for centuries--as the widest possible security belt around the Soviet Union's vast periphery. In insisting on a free hand vis-a-vis his neighbors, Stalin was following traditional Russian practice."

"After the battle of Stalingrad, Stalin became increasingly certain that the war woudl end with the Soviet Union in possession of most of the terrotories likely to be in dispute. Having less and less to gain from negotiations, Stalin entrusted the shape of the postwar world to the reach of his armies."

"Most other societies would have treated the British pursuit of the national interest as a matter of course. To American leaders, however, it represented a flaw inherent in the British character."

"America's most significant military experiences had been its own Civil War, which had been fought to the finish, and the First World War. Both of which had ended in total victory. In American thinking foreign policy and [war] strategy were compartmentalized into successive phases of national policy. In the ideal American universe, diplomats stayed out of strategy, and military personnel completed their task by the time diplomacy started--a view for which America was to pay dearly in the Korean and Vietnam wars."

"As a general rule, countries striving for stability and equilibrium should do everything within their power to achieve their basic peace terms while still at war. As long as the enemy is in the field, his strength indirectly enhances that of the more peaceful side. If this principle is neglected and the key issues are left unresolved until the peace conference, the most determined power ends up in possession of the prizes and can be dislodged only by a major confrontation."

"Declarations of principle, Stalin said, were like algebra; he preferred practical arithmetic."

"Stalin vastly underestimated the seriousness with which Americans have traditionally approached legal documents. Later, when it decided to organize resistance to Soviet expansionism, America did so on the basis of Stalin's failure to keep his word."

"The theme that the incumbent it the Kremlin was in his heart of hearts a peaceful moderate in need of help in overcoming his intrasigent colleagues was to remain a constant of American discussions ever after, regardless of the Soviet leader."

"Churchill's geopolitical analysis was far more accurate than Roosevelt's. Yet Roosevelt's reluctance to see the world in geopolitical terms was the reverse side of the same idealism which had propelled America into the war and enabled it to preserve the cause of freedom. Had Roosevelt followed Churchill's prescriptions, he would have improved America's bargaining position but might have sacrificed its ability to sustain the confrontations of the Cold War that were still ahead."

Truman: "If the president knows what he wants, no bureaucrat can stop him. A president has to know when to stop taking advice."

"Starting out from an assumption of underlying harmony, Truman ascribed disagreements with the Soviets not to conflicting geopolitical interests but to 'misbehavior' and 'political immaturity.' It was a characteristically American statement."

"The cultural gap between American and Soviet leaders contributed to the emerging Cold War. American negotiators acted as if the mere recitation of their legal and moral rights ought to produce the results they desired. But Stalin needed far more persuasive reasons to change his course."

"Stalin, the master calculator, had miscalculated. For, once Americans' confidence in his good faith had been destroyed, there was to be no easy road back for him. Stalin pressed his position too far because he never really understood the psychology of the democracies, especially America's. The result was the Marshall Plan, the Atlantic Alliance, and the Western military buildup, none of which could have been in his game plan."