What was the best way for America to deal with the USSR? Assuming the Soviet Union never went to shit and collapsed on its own, what policy was best for America? We all know containment didn't do shit. Would peace between their ideologies ever become a possibility or was the extended detente of the 70s the best it ever could've been?
>>20286
Detente. War entailed mutually assured destruction, no one could win.
Detente plus proxy wars was the best option. We were doing just fine (politically speaking) until Vietnam and southeast Asia happened. Domino theory was a cancer.
MAD kept the peace pretty well, but the Soviet Union was really a doomed state. Its a miracle it lasted as long as it did.
Have America in the 19th century not be pussy babies and go full empire before the UK and France take all the good land. By the time the USA realized their mistake, they could only steal from the really small remains of the Spanish Empire.
An imperial U.S. would be much more aggressive and would have tried to stop the communization of Russia before it went too out of hand because individual liberty Trumps command economies.
Not going the complete ham way before the USSR even existed, the US probably should have tried to get more aid from NATO in countering Communist expansion in places like Korea and Vietnam. In both places, the fighting was essentially USA and direct belligerent (South Korea and South Vietnam) vs. other direct belligerent (North Korea and North Vietnam) backed by the Soviets and occasionally the Chinese. Maybe even re militarizing Japan might have been a good idea to set up a strong ally in East Asia before everything went bonkers.
But yeah, America should have just annexed Japan and West Germany (Western Europe) when it had the chance. Maybe even let Nazi Germany conquer the UK, then 'liberate' (ironically reverse colonize) Great Britain.
>>20286
Containment. It basically sure the USSR would collapse. Vietnam was a mistake though.
>>20765
You're going full alternate history here. What would be the purpose behind annexing Japan? Just to deter further communist expansion in Asia?
I don't feel that Imperialist America would be great for either side. Even today we're still cleaning up the messes from Imperialism, and America's forays can be seen in the states that their South American exploits are still in.
But why the US didn't do more with stopping China going red, I'll never know.
>>20765
>But yeah, America should have just annexed Japan and West Germany (Western Europe) when it had the chance.
do they really believe this bullshit?
Containment and confrontation did much more harm than good. I don't like that rat Gorbachev, but he was right when he said the "winner" of the Cold War wasn't America - it was humanity, for avoiding the stupidity of two puffed-up superstates each arrogantly convinced they could own the world pointing nukes at one another.
Of course, both Americans and Russians have fucked that up since. But for a little while in the early nineties, before anyone realised that the American political elites didn't want actual peace and that the Soviet elite had already sold their country out in order to get rich, there was a lovely vision of a future where we grew out of all this shit. Norman Spinrad's scifi novel "Russian Spring" is a great time capsule of the optimism of that period (it came out the month the USSR collapsed, sadly).
Instead of spending so much on weapons, spend more on economic development in capitalist developing countries.
Communism seems to be a more effective model when it comes to basic 1.0 industrialization (big infrastructure, mass education, state building). If the West had worked harder to build the basic infrastructure for capitalism to flourish, then the capitalist developing countries would have pulled ahead economically more quickly. E.g. you might have seen the likes of Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Pakistan, etc. pull ahead of their socialist neighbours far more quickly than actually happened (were it wasn't clear until the 80s that they definitely had the better growth model).
>>20680
MAD was alright, but it certainly wasn't great for the world's outlook on the state of affairs.
Have you heard about all the close calls we've been in due to simple error? It's almost terrifying to think how we could've ended if cooler heads hadn't prevailed.
>>21013
>But why the US didn't do more with stopping China going red, I'll never know.
I think it was the one time we were self aware enough to realize that the people we were propping up were creeps who had exactly 0 legitimacy and no will to win. Keeping them propped up in Taiwan was easy since we have the #1 navy but fuck fighting a land war in china for them.
>>21013
>But why the US didn't do more with stopping China going red, I'll never know.
Essentially Americans were tired of the war and most believed the KMD were hopelessly corrupt and that Mao was really a reformist (the corruption vs reformist view is one you see in America's view of China starting even before the war and I argue extends to the modern day period). Also they mismanaged the Chinese front by putting people who were not necessarily competent to advise and control Chiang (he previously had much more competent German military advisors). In other words the larger demands of the War were onerous on the Chinese population and eventually flipped the population over to Communist.
>>21494
Even Stalin at that time realize CKS was the only one that could fight off the Japanese. It wasn't that there was no legitimacy. It was the fact they lost Nationalists lost their legitimacy because the population bore the brunt of the war that magnified the effects of corruption and material failures.
>>21013
>I don't feel that Imperialist America would be great for either side.
>>21013
I don't know, look at places like the Philippines, they were doing pretty well as an American colony.
If we picked up Japan that means Formosa/Taiwan, which puts is in the region to back up Chang Kai Shek and the nationalist Chinese. Korea and Vietnam never happen.
>>21582
>logistics?
>plan of action?
>who needs that shit just throw 22 million farmers at the japs
>what could possibly go wrong
>>21724
If not Korea or Vietnam, it would just be somewhere else. I would think a greater American presence in Asia would spark more conflicts than it would calm, especially given their hatred towards Western interference.
>>21856
Korea and Vietnam were very much facilitated by red china though, as much as western imperialism. I'm assuming an alternate reality with a strong American presence in the region where that doesn't exist.
If you look at the most successful places in asia, most of them are former western colonies and protectorates. Your Hong Kong's, Taipei, Shanghai, Seoul, KL, etc. Asians are a pragmatic people and will go along happily with whatever works.
