What we support and defend

[Fuchs]

I suspect that Roosevelt would also not have bought into the Containment strategy. I suspect he would have been more in alignment with other, far less intrusive and expensive approaches offered by policy thinkers such as Walter Lippmann.

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

[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.

[carl]

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

Yer Honor, I was provoked. And I throw myself upon the the mercy of the court.

[Steve Blair]

Yer Honor, I was provoked. And I throw myself upon the the mercy of the court.

So long as you both stick to debating ideas and not personalities, no court will be called. Strong, informed discussion is good. Mudslinging is not.

[Bob's World]

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

Yeah, that guy. Clearly no one was containing Japan in that era. No one knows what FDR would have done if he had lived to shape the post-war peace. I only point it out because many seem to think that the Containment strategy was the only option for dealing with the Soviet threat. It was one of many, and while it arguably served it's purpose, it did so great cost to our national ethos and it continues to cloud how we see the world and potential challeges to our interests to this day.

Truman was very practial and direct, and containment on his watch was like the man. When Ike took office containment made a major shift. FDR was a different type of leader, so I suspect he would have logically taken a different type of approach.