End of Empires: who and what was responsible? (post WW2)

[Steve Blair]

You mean the guy who made sure Imperial Japan was cut off from oil imports?

Quite. Ol' FDR was certainly into Containment of a sort. It depended on what his needs were at the time. I think it's more instructive to look at his behavior prior to the outbreak of the war than it is to look at decisions he made prior to Yalta and after. He was fading then, and certainly under sway of his own infallibility.

And I'd caution a couple folks in this thread to please debate issues and not personalities.

David, I tend to think Truman (who was a product of the St. Louis political "machine" if I remember correctly) was more concerned with domestic issues and didn't know much about foreign policy (a fairly common thing for many Democratic presidents). He tended to react in the foreign policy area, and was perhaps too dependent on his advisers (who were often FDR appointees). He was also concerned with appearing "weak," and thus would react to Republican accusations of weakness with perhaps more force than was necessary.