Presumably anti-Soviet leaders, scholars and others agreed because they never stopped whingeing about it.

However, by NYE 1945 the geopolitics of postwar Europe were virtually settled.

Moreover, by NYE 1945 the bulk of the US Army in Europe had been demobilised, stood down or redeployed.

In the case of Poland, Stalin only had to make one good decision. He made it.

The Red Army coulda been forced back to Soviet borders by the Americans. Coulda headed off the whole Cold War, forced the Politburo to re-examine how important Stalin was to them – ah well.

And all this was supposed to happen before the testing of the A-bomb?

Andrew E’s, fanciful counterfactual would have ended in military disaster for the US and Britain. The Soviet Army would have rolled the British and the Americans back to the English Channel.

In any case, Truman weighed the value of Poland against the cost of sending US troops into China to defeat the 3,000,000 strong Japanese Army stationed there. Correctly, he decided that the Soviets were the only force capable of coping with that enornmous, entrenched Japanese force.

Of course, the A-bomb changed everything. But by the time the A-bomb became available, the time for going to war against the Soviets had passed.

It is perhaps not coincidental to the decisionmaking in this incident that Stalin knew far more about the Manhattan Project than either Attlee or Truman. Donald Maclean provided much of this valuable intelligence.

No, the textbook case of good decisionmaking based on understanding of the balance of forces and based on excellent intelligence belongs to Stalin.

At this point Attlee and Truman thought that they might need the help of the Red Army to winkle the Japanese out of China. Polish self-determination, sufficiently confused by Mikołajczyk’s defection, served the purposes of grand policy.

The Red Army coulda been forced back to Soviet borders by the Americans. Coulda headed off the whole Cold War, forced the Politburo to re-examine how important Stalin was to them – ah well.

# Craven? The Yalta conference had already divvied up Germany into zones of control. Hard to see how the Americans could have forced the Soviets to relinquish control of Poland etc short of dropping atomic bombs on them, hence the idea that the bombs were dropped on Japan as a warning to Stalin. Remember the people who won WW2 were the Soviets.

In the olden days societies were simpler and political agendas were clearer. Thus you went to war with the guy over the other side of the hill. If you won you killeed or enslaved him and took his land and his women. So there was less scope for unintended consequences, assuming you won.

Of course if you lost then all bets were off.

In more modern times with complex social specialisation and multiple political agendas there is much more opportunity for perverse consequences for both martial and civil actions.

War is especially prone to this perversity owing to its amplification of force and unleashing of non-rational sentiment.

1945: Poland is under occupation by the Soviet army, yet Britain calls off its war with what remained of Germany and couldn’t be arsed going to war with the Soviet Union over Poland.

It wasn’t that simple.

At the end of WWII Stanisław Mikołajczyk led the Polish government in exile, recognised by the UK.

Churchill attempted to persuade Mikołajczyk to accept Soviet annexation of the Eastern regions of Poland. Mikołajczyk refused.

Despite his hatred of the Soviets and Communist, in November 1944 Mikołajczyk resigned from the Polish Government in Exile as president of Poland under Soviet auspices.

Thus the Soviets established a friendly regime in Poland under the auspices of the leader of the Polish Government in exile.

In July 1945 both the US and the UK recognised the Mikołajczyk regime.

At this point Attlee and Truman thought that they might need the help of the Red Army to winkle the Japanese out of China. Polish self-determination, sufficiently confused by Mikołajczyk’s defection, served the purposes of grand policy.

1939: Britain goes to war with Germany, invoking that treaty after Germany invaded Poland.

1945: Poland is under occupation by the Soviet army, yet Britain calls off its war with what remained of Germany and couldn’t be arsed going to war with the Soviet Union over Poland.

War, like other means of politics, or other actions by humans, gives rise to unintended consequences. Quelle surprise!

Shaun, what was their take on the Spanish War?
Was it anything other than “Tada! We’re now a world player and we’ve demonstarted our up-to-date navy by seizing the following remnants of the Spanish empire….”?

Lesson #2: don’t forget Lesson #1.

Up next: Capp and Lockhorn’s scholarly study of marital conflicts.

Only badly chosen and/or badly fought wars have the effects mentioned by the authors.

Which is that I think the authors were getting at (obviously with Iraq). However in their zeal to make this point a war like the Second World War is analyzed from this perspective which is incorrect.

Their thesis is that the unintended consequences of war invalidate Clausewitz as war tends to produce new policy often at odds with the stated policy for prosecuting a war.

If that is indeed their thesis, then it is utterly illogical.

It assumes that all wars have unintended consequences that are potent enough to generate policy contradictory to that which motivated war.

Clearly that isn’t true. For example, Britain maintained a policy of balance of power in Europe for two centuries up to the end of WWI.

Necessarily, all wars have some unintended consequences. But a well-chosen war will provoke vicissitudes that are insufficiently potent to derail grand policy.

Only badly chosen and/or badly fought wars have the effects mentioned by the authors.

that is, the very existence of contingency feeds into the mad and bad world of peanuts like Bush, howard etc who are trying to ‘rid’ the world of such contingency by incorporating it into their governing structure, for neocons as teh terrorists or neoliberals teh market forces.