A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) [Hardcover]

Melvyn Leffler (Author)

Book Description

Series: Stanford Nuclear Age Series | Publication Date: January 1, 1992

This is the most comprehensive history to date of the Truman Administration's progressive embroilment in the cold war, and it presents a stunning new interpretation of U.S. national security policy during the formative stages of the Soviet-American rivalry. Illustrated with 15 halftones and 10 maps.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Offering a new slant on the early years of the Cold War, this major reassessment traces the development of national security policy during the Truman administration. Based on a rich vein of recently declassified material, Leffler's majestic study describes how Harry Truman and his advisers sought to mobilize America's power in order to deal with the dangers of the postwar world and create a global environment hospitable to U.S. interests and values. There was much to be apprehensive about, in particular, the presence of Soviet armies in Eastern Europe and Northeast Asia; the rise of the left in Greece, Italy, France, China and Korea; nationalist uprisings in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Leffler, a history professor at the University of Virginia and author of America's Pursuit of European Security and French Stability, 1919-1933 , analyzes the daring American initiatives launched during this period, including the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, the effort to promote economic recovery in Japan and the commitment of troops to the defense of South Korea in 1950. Illustrations.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Massive, brilliant post-glasnost analysis of early cold-war realities by Leffler (History/Univ. of Virginia). This study of how Truman dealt with a world sealed off to him by FDR is a book and a half. It deals with the inception of the cold war in terms that make the Korean War a logical extension of existing policy rather than an atypical crystallizing event. It penetrates the strident rhetoric that gripped American thinking for 40 years down to the eternal verities of economic advantage and the pursuit of power, carefully articulating their linkage and diplomacy. At stake, Leffler explains, was domination of European and Asian resources: The US had its incomparable economy, a highly visible standard of living, and a State Department not yet hobbled by willful chief executives; the Soviet Union had an ideology that could ``capitalize on social dislocation and take advantage of nascent nationalism in the third world.'' The feisty Truman emerges here as unprepared to formulate serious foreign policy, with his subordinates often at odds; and despite jingoistic political fulminations and the progressive eroding of security, Leffler says, there really wasn't much fear at the top of a hot war between the US and the Soviets. Rather, the heart of the matter was the US- financed revival of free European and Asian economies. Khrushchev's famous ``We will bury you'' was a whistling in the dark, Leffler says: the US had already forged its ``configuration of power in the core of Eurasia.'' Indispensable for anyone interested in what really happened during this period, although Leffler's conclusions may be too optimistic. ``Capitalizing on past successes'' seems difficult for a nation that today probably could not capitalize a Marshall Plan, and stability via ``curtailing arms sales that fuel local rivalries'' seems a fond dream for the world's largest exporter of arms. (Fifteen halftones, nine maps--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 712 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804719241
• ISBN-13: 978-0804719247
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #747,003 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, May 16, 2009

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R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Paperback)

This excellent book is a very scholarly and well written analysis of the opening of the Cold War. Based on several years work in American archives and careful reading of the large secondary literature, this is the standard account of the development of American policy under the Truman administration. The major limitation, which Leffler acknowledges forthrightly at the beginning of the book, is that access to Soviet archives is limited and much of what Leffler writes about Soviet intentions and policy is based on American analyses. Leffler's comparisons of American and Soviet intentions, consequently, may be subject to revision. His analysis of American policy, however, is likely to be the standard account for the foreseeable future.

Leffler sees American policy as driven by a broad, consensual, sophisticated, and specific vision of American security needs. For the policy makers who dominated the Truman administration, the crucial experiences were the failure of Wilsonian internationalism after WWI, the failure of America to exert decisive leadership after WWI, the emergence of autarchic dictatorships in Europe and Japan, and the need for the massive American effort in WWII to defeat the most dangerous of those dictatorships. The American policy making elite, a coalition of internationalist Democrats and former Republicans, concluded that American security required friendly, prosperous democratic regimes in the industrialized sections of Eurasia - Western Europe and Japan, an open international economic order, and multilateral institutions to guarantee international economic and political security. This vision of American security was not one of narrow safety. A Eurasia in the grip of hostile dictatorships would result not only in an unhospitable political environment but also in a world of internatinal trade restricted by autarchic governments and narrow, bilateral trade agreements. American security in this world would have required the transformation of America into a garrison state with marked changes in the liberal capitalism and democratic institutions of America. Avoiding this grim future required an aggressive and far-reaching American foreign policy. Leffler is careful to point out that this vision of American security was not driven by fears of Soviet predominance per se. American policy makers perceived the Soviet State as militarily powerful on the ground but markedly limited by the weak industrial base of the Soviet Union, the ravages of WWII, absence of strategic weapons, and its brutal political system. Its wasn't so much the power of the Soviet Union as much as poverty and political chaos leading to the peoples of Europe and Japan succumbing to the false promises of Communism that was feared by American policy makers.

The primary instrument to avoid this grim vision of the future was a very active, indeed sometimes aggressive, international policy. This policy was based on and required a preponderance of American power. Preponderance meant American superiority in industrial might, American financial power, American dominance in strategic weapons, and American possession of nuclear superiority. Leffler is careful also to point out that predominance did not mean dominance. American policy makers were strongly committed to multilateral partnerships to guarantee security and their vision of a liberal international order. This required the resuscitation of, and partnerships with, European democracies and the encouragement of a democratic Japanese state. This required also the development of international institutions through which the USA could work, and cooperation with smaller powers like Britain and France to develop an international order. Like other historians, Leffler identifies Western Europe and Japan as the key 'battlegrounds' of the Cold War. Much of this book is a detailed narrative of American efforts to stablize these key regions. Leffler's narrative of these complex and difficult events is outstanding, showing well the challenges of manuevering through the complex postwar world. His treatment, for example, of the difficult problem of the role of the German state and its relationships with France and other European nations is outstanding. He shows the difficulties of balancing American goals with the needs of the Germans and easily understandable anxieties of the French.

Leffler portrays the Soviets under Stalin as cautious and essentially reactive to American policies. Leffler is very clear, however, on the difference between Soviet and American security goals and how these conflicting visions of the world led to inevitable conflict. Some Soviet actions, such as the Soviet treatment of Poland and the 1948 Soviet support of the coup in Czechoslovakia, were important influences on American policy. To be fair, some other scholars have tended to place greater emphasis on Soviet aggression, though Leffler's emphasis on relative American power and relative Soviet weakness strikes me as essentially correct.

By the end of the Truman administration, Truman's team had laid the foundations for all subsequent American Cold War policies and the eventual success of the US in the contest between the USA and the Soviet Union. This was the achievement of a very impressive group of policy makers including individuals like the great George Marshall, Dean Acheson, George F. Kennan, and many others. The treatment of Truman himself is interesting. A novice in foreign policy on his accession to the Presidency, Truman delegated a great deal and the foreign policy achievements of his administration are very much the institutional success of what might be called an Eastern Establishment elite.

Leffler is equally good on the drawbacks and errors of the American approach. The goal of preponderance required world-wide American involvement and incremental expansion of American commitments. In Europe, for example, this would lead initially to security guarantees for the British and French (defense at the Rhine border) and later to guarantees for defense of West Germany. Probably less fruitfully, this led also to American involvement as de facto policeman in much of the world, including the decolonializing Third World. The perceived need for preponderance would also generate the costly nuclear arms race. Implicit in Leffler's analysis is that American desire to avoid a garrison state led to Cold War policies that had the effect of introducing the expansion of government power and commitments that American policy makers wished to avoid.

Leffler offers 2 important criticisms of the preponderance policy. American policy makers had a strong tendency to regard the actions of local Communist parties as extensions of Soviet policy. Leffer presents this phenomenon as to some extent driven by a projection onto the Soviets of how the Americans themselves wished to behave. But it was based also in the interwar experience of the Comintern, which did act as an agent of Stalin's policies. The monolithic view of Communist actions, however, had a distorting effect on American policy, leading, for example, to serious misunderstandings of important events like the Korean War. Leffler also points out that American policy makers probably over-valued the importance of events in the Third World. American policy makers appear to have been driven by an essentially imperialist vision of the world economy. Third World nations were necessary as markets and sources of raw materials for the industrialized core. Southeast Asia, for example, was seen as crucial for the Japanese economy and this was a major factor in our long and largely fruitless involvement in Vietnam. While the role of some Third World countries, like the oil producing states of the Middle East, was very important, in general, American policy makers overestimated the importance of decolonializing nations. This led to serious errors like support for the former colonial masters of a variey of nations and long term preoccupation with events in the Third World periphery that would prove very costly for the USA and often disastrous for the Third World nations involved.

Leffler has a very thoughtful and well written concluding section on the merits of American policy. In brief summary, he sees the Cold War as inevitable and many aspects of American policy as logical and formulated well. But, given his view of the Stalinist state as essentially cautious, pragmatic, and reactive, we made significant errors. We had to fight the Cold War but probably not so vigorously.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rankean. Magisterial. Faith-Restoring, November 23, 2008

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Reader (Arlington, Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Paperback)

Melvyn Leffler labored for more than ten years in official U.S. archives from the 1940s and early 1950s to research and write this book. He read diplomatic cables, parsed decision papers, and studied war plans -- in short, he marinated himself in the decision-making of the Truman Administration. The outcome of his labor was this long and beautiful history of U.S. national security strategy in the early Cold War. Anyone reading it will be gripped by the thought, "This makes sense. This is how things happened." Leffler's book is a triumph of the historian's art.

After World War II, U.S. policymakers were determined keep the industrial and human resources of Europe and Japan out of Soviet control, lest the global balance of power tilt against the U.S. No one thought that Stalin wanted to start another war. However, Washington was alarmed that instability and economic crisis could bring Communist parties to power in Italy, France, Greece and elswhere, eventually drawing them into the Soviet orbit. The U.S. took on the task of rebuilding war-smashed economies in Europe and Japan, reviving German military power in the context of a European defense system, and stabilizing "peripheral" areas such as the Middle East and South East Asia that were seen as crucial to economic recovery in the "core." Huge mistakes were made in the process -- but the strategy, as we now know, was successful. It was the most creative era in the history of U.S. diplomacy.

Leffler ties this story together with lucid prose, copious documentation, and a minimum of editorial comments. He recreates the deliberations of decisionmakers like Acheson, Kennan, and Marshall, knowing that statesmen are driven by realpolitik -- but knowing also that realpolitik can be quite unrealistic if its assumptions are wrong (Washington wrongly assumed, for example, that Communist parties everywhere were controlled by the Kremlin). Some readers of the book will hail the U.S. for rescuing Europe from totalitarianism. Others will damn the U.S. for amassing atomic weapons, propping up upopular governments in places like Vietnam, and succumbing to indiscriminate anti-Communism. But all will come away enlightened about a turning point in twentieth century history. They will also have their faith restored in the possibility of grand political history.

My only complaint is that Leffler's analysis is relentlessly centered on Washington. European leaders appear only on the margins of the story, and Japanese and Soviet leaders are almost invisible. Unfortunately, Soviet archives were still mostly closed when Leffler did his research. Moscow's view of the origins of the Cold War will have to be found elsewhere. No matter: Leffler has done enough for one scholar! Six stars.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Captivating, intersesting, and thought provoking book., September 30, 2007

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spchlgr 3985 "A.G. Ward" (Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford Nuclear Age Series) (Paperback)

I found this book to be very interesting and thought provoking. It captured and held my interest from the beginning. To fully understand this book it is essential to have some background about the cold war, its origin and the key players in both the Soviet Union and the Truman Administration.
Marvin Leffler does an outstanding job explaining the origin of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) one the most successful alliances that have endured while other have formed and dissolved. In A Preponderance of Power you will understand how the Marshall Plan or as some know it, The European Recovery Plan, rescued Europe from the twin specters of starvation and Communism. In the book you will learn about key players such as George C. Marshall, a five-star Army general who became the Secretary of State in some of the most critical days of the Cold War and Secretary of Defense in the Korean War. There is also Dean Rusk, a former Rhodes Scholar who possessed a substantial interest in the interlocking nature of political-military affairs.
Yes, this book is a monumental achievement. I intend to purchase Leffler's latest book, For the Soul of Mankind, The Soviet Union, the United States and the Cold War