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Are you implying that all communist antagonism was in response to American policy? I believe there was plenty of aggression by all parties in the Cold War, but

Are you implying that all communist antagonism was in response to American policy? I believe there was plenty of aggression by all parties in the Cold War, but there are several instances where the communists were very clearly the aggressors. Just a couple of highlights: 1) The Soviet blockade of West Berlin. The Soviets did this in response to the horrifically aggressive acts of the US, Britain, and France to... manage their occupation zones in Germany differently than the Soviets wanted them to, and economic and currency reform in West Germany. 2) The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. As far as I can tell, western involvement in Dubcek's reforms and the Prague Spring were about as non-existent as possible. This didn't stop the Soviets and other Warsaw Pact nations invading their own ally, and in explicit violation of the Warsaw Pact itself. 3) The Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam. The west's bizarre support of the Khmer Rouge after the successful Vietnamese invasion notwithstanding (for complex geopolitical reasons), prior to the invasion it treated both Cambodia and Vietnam as enemies and the war between the two nations was do to their own politics, not any US influence. And there are plenty more. And I'm sure there are instances you can bring up where the combloc countries were reacting to clear aggression by the west, but here's the thing: I'm not claiming that such aggression never happened. Meanwhile you seem to be arguing that the combloc countries would have been perfectly peaceful if they didn't need to react to aggressions by those damn western capitalists.

underlipton 2y ago
How much of this happened after the Truman Doctrine was announced? Or, for that matter, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki?
- HideousKojima 2y ago
  >Truman Doctrine Wait, why would the Soviet Union see a pledge to protect nations from authoritarian threats as aggression?
  - underlipton 2y ago
    Because that's an incredibly euphemistic read of what it stood for, akin to taking a police department press release at face value. Soviets reading between the lines - as American warhawks certainly intended it to be read - would have recognized it as a declaration of America's intent to isolate the USSR, cutting it off from potential global allies (i.e., threats to Western capitalist hegemony, e.g., any country that threatened to nationalize its resources in opposition to Western corporate interests). It turned what could have been a negotiation for power-sharing (through which soft power and widespread welfare might influence more robust observation of human rights) into a (second) confirmation that the two superpowers were entering a period of conflict (the nature of which actually encouraged means-to-an-end thinking that caused suffering in both the 1st and 2nd worlds). Later developments would also prove the doctrine's stated intentions to be a farce, as much of its execution involved toppling democracies in favor of US-backed autocrats.
    - HideousKojima 2y ago
      So the Soviets took a public statement to mean something not explicitly stated, and that made it justified to and not an act of aggression to (checks notes) cut off all food and humanitarian aid to a city? Your view of things here is seriously twisted man. I don't think the west were perfect little angels during the cold war period, why is it so hard for you to not consider the same for the combloc countries? Especially when the Soviets already had a history of unjustified aggression and expansionism in Poland, Finland, the Baltics, and Romania in the lead up to/during WW2?
      - underlipton 2y ago
        >So the Soviets took a public statement to mean something not explicitly stated Yes. >and that made it justified I didn't say that. Their reaction may not have been justified, but it, or some like reaction, was understandable, even predictable - and, most importantly, a reaction. Speaking from the perspective of the West, who could not control the USSR's behavior, but who could measure its own actions against what would provoke or placate them: did we do everything we could to avoid the Cold War? Did we AVOID doing anything that might have pushed both states towards it? Clearly not. So, circling back: when we talk about the US spiriting Nazis away to America, setting them up with a happy American life, justified by the necessity of staying ahead of the Soviets in a military and technological arms race... Where does that necessity come from? Something unavoidable, or not? That's my only point here. It's wild that America created conditions where we felt the need to harbor mass murderers and/or their enablers, when we needn't have had to. I don't know why that idea makes you so angry.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  Would you care to explain to us how (just picking one of the events listed at random) literally blockading an entire city -- cutting off all access to food and humanitarian supplies -- can in any way be a logical, "non-antagonistic" response to a paper declaration such as the Truman Doctrine? Or even to the Soviets' stated rationale for taking action -- the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in West Berlin? I'd really like to see your careful, considered response to this question.
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  - underlipton 2y ago
    Well, it's not non-antagonistic, of course. It was an antagonistic response to previous antagonism, both in word (the aforementioned doctrine) and deed (unnecessarily obliterating an entire city with a single bomb, in part as an intimidation strategy). It's simply not irrational to perceive some given action as a way to f*ck with you (even if we give America et al. the benefit of the doubt it assuming that it was ultimately meant benignly) if the people carrying out the action had previously declared, "We are going to f*ck with you," and it does, in fact, end up f*cking with you.
    - aguaviva 2y ago
      Well, it's not non-antagonistic, of course. Seems you can't bring yourself to simply say, "it was antagonistic" for some reason. "Is the sky blue?" - "Well, it isn't non-blue ..."
      - underlipton 2y ago
        I was informally quoting your previous d̶o̶u̶b̶l̶e̶s̶p̶e̶a̶k̶ comment. Your pedantry and avoidance of a substantive reply are noted.

underlipton 2y ago

How much of this happened after the Truman Doctrine was announced? Or, for that matter, after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki?

HideousKojima 2y ago
>Truman Doctrine Wait, why would the Soviet Union see a pledge to protect nations from authoritarian threats as aggression?
- underlipton 2y ago
  Because that's an incredibly euphemistic read of what it stood for, akin to taking a police department press release at face value. Soviets reading between the lines - as American warhawks certainly intended it to be read - would have recognized it as a declaration of America's intent to isolate the USSR, cutting it off from potential global allies (i.e., threats to Western capitalist hegemony, e.g., any country that threatened to nationalize its resources in opposition to Western corporate interests). It turned what could have been a negotiation for power-sharing (through which soft power and widespread welfare might influence more robust observation of human rights) into a (second) confirmation that the two superpowers were entering a period of conflict (the nature of which actually encouraged means-to-an-end thinking that caused suffering in both the 1st and 2nd worlds). Later developments would also prove the doctrine's stated intentions to be a farce, as much of its execution involved toppling democracies in favor of US-backed autocrats.
  - HideousKojima 2y ago
    So the Soviets took a public statement to mean something not explicitly stated, and that made it justified to and not an act of aggression to (checks notes) cut off all food and humanitarian aid to a city? Your view of things here is seriously twisted man. I don't think the west were perfect little angels during the cold war period, why is it so hard for you to not consider the same for the combloc countries? Especially when the Soviets already had a history of unjustified aggression and expansionism in Poland, Finland, the Baltics, and Romania in the lead up to/during WW2?
    - underlipton 2y ago
      >So the Soviets took a public statement to mean something not explicitly stated Yes. >and that made it justified I didn't say that. Their reaction may not have been justified, but it, or some like reaction, was understandable, even predictable - and, most importantly, a reaction. Speaking from the perspective of the West, who could not control the USSR's behavior, but who could measure its own actions against what would provoke or placate them: did we do everything we could to avoid the Cold War? Did we AVOID doing anything that might have pushed both states towards it? Clearly not. So, circling back: when we talk about the US spiriting Nazis away to America, setting them up with a happy American life, justified by the necessity of staying ahead of the Soviets in a military and technological arms race... Where does that necessity come from? Something unavoidable, or not? That's my only point here. It's wild that America created conditions where we felt the need to harbor mass murderers and/or their enablers, when we needn't have had to. I don't know why that idea makes you so angry.
aguaviva 2y ago
Would you care to explain to us how (just picking one of the events listed at random) literally blockading an entire city -- cutting off all access to food and humanitarian supplies -- can in any way be a logical, "non-antagonistic" response to a paper declaration such as the Truman Doctrine? Or even to the Soviets' stated rationale for taking action -- the introduction of the Deutsche Mark in West Berlin? I'd really like to see your careful, considered response to this question.
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- underlipton 2y ago
  Well, it's not non-antagonistic, of course. It was an antagonistic response to previous antagonism, both in word (the aforementioned doctrine) and deed (unnecessarily obliterating an entire city with a single bomb, in part as an intimidation strategy). It's simply not irrational to perceive some given action as a way to f*ck with you (even if we give America et al. the benefit of the doubt it assuming that it was ultimately meant benignly) if the people carrying out the action had previously declared, "We are going to f*ck with you," and it does, in fact, end up f*cking with you.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    Well, it's not non-antagonistic, of course. Seems you can't bring yourself to simply say, "it was antagonistic" for some reason. "Is the sky blue?" - "Well, it isn't non-blue ..."
    - underlipton 2y ago
      I was informally quoting your previous d̶o̶u̶b̶l̶e̶s̶p̶e̶a̶k̶ comment. Your pedantry and avoidance of a substantive reply are noted.