[PEN-L:1688] Re: Re: Re: Social Democracy and Utopia

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Whether or not Truman was acting as a pawn of the aircraft industry it is
>fairly
>clear that Truman misinterpreted Soviet intentions in Korea. Indeed, the
>entire conception of the Cold War affected by "Last War Syndrome", the
>tendency
>for American policy makers to see the world through the lens of their last
>major
>conflict. Every colonial liberation struggle and civil war in the post-War
>period
>was a Hitleresque machination aimed toward world domination by the Soviet
>Union.
>
>Whether or not S. Korea and/or Taiwan are better off for having fallen
>under the Western umbrella is an entirely separate issue from whether the
>world really benefited from a staggeringly expensive arms race and 40 years of
>playing the game of nuclear chicken.

That's simply not true.

On the minus side we do have a staggeringly expensive nuclear arms race, 40
years of playing the game of nuclear chicken, significant damage done to
democratic institutions in the United States, and active aid and assistance
to a bunch of state terrorists who happened to dislike Communists as well.

On the plus side we have a somewhat smaller set of countries spending a
generation or two under the rule of Communist regimes of varying
quality--from Pol Pot or Mao or Kim Il Sung at the bottom end to Castro at
the top end.

Whether U.S. post-WWII foreign policy was--broadly speaking--a good (or at
least a not-so-bad) idea depends on whether the plus side outweighs the
minus side. And so you cannot say that the quality of life in South Korea
relative to North Korea is an "entirely separate issue." It just isn't.


Brad DeLong