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

[Dayuhan]

That this was not anticipated or alternatively that this outcome was deemed inevitable and therefore acceptable says much about the driving force behind this decolonialisation process ... the USA under FDR.

While Stalin and Mao presided over the repression on a grand scale no one person delivered people into the death grip of dictators and repression like FDR. Truly a man who should be placed right up there in the rouges gallery next to Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Enver (Turkey), Pol Pot, Assad, Mengistu, Mugabe etc etc due to the number lives and human suffering his incompetent statesmanship cost.

I'm not sure the USA was the sole or primary driving force behind the decolonization process... in most cases the colonies were going to break free no matter what the US did. The only colony the US had made a transition into (dysfunctional) democracy. I'm not at all sure that the US could ever have controlled the decolonization process or the form of postcolonial government for colonies of other countries.

Certainly decolonization was handled clumsily by the European powers, who generally couldn't hang on and wouldn't let go... though admittedly the British were slightly more gracious than some about accepting the obvious. I don't see how that can be blamed on FDR or the US.

I do think that one of the great American failings of the Cold War was allowing the communists to seize the moral high ground and historical momentum of opposition to fading empires and at least some of the post-colonial tinpot dictators. Swimming against the tide is rough work, and we paid (and are still paying) a price for that... but that came well after FDR.