Customer Reviews

Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Studies in International Security and Ar)

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The book provides great insight into Stalin's almost paranoid fear of a Sino-American rapprochment, even before the end of WWII. In fact, the book dedicates the entire first section to detailing this concern of Stalin's. And, it is well-researched. The problem is that when assessing Stalin's interests in getting China to enter the Korean war, the authors list vague and anecdotal reasons as to why Stalin might want a direct Sino-American conflict on the battlefield. They even acknowledge that this was the result, but oddly never consider that this was Stalin's intention all along. Otherwise, a useful work to understand how the war fit into the larger strategic calculations of all three players.

In an overall sense, this is an outstanding book. Uncertain Partners deals with many of the issues surrounding the nations of China, Russia, and Korea immediately following WWII. The authors, a Russian presidential advisor and two Stanford political scientists, reveal and report about many of the confidential documents of Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Il Sung. These documents, never before seen previous to the 1990s, describe the inner-workings and deep-seeded relationship between Stalin and Mao. In many ways, Stalin and Mao were uncertain partners. The authors makes the reader understand that Mao was simply a puppet of Stalin and his form dictatorial communism. For a greater understanding of this partnership, I would undoubtably recommend this book. Concerning the topic of Russian and Chinese relations, this book has to have profound implications. With that in mind, it's a must read.

Busy people need to know the right things to read.

This book is compelling and relevant to current issues as Russia, China, Japan, North Korea, Taiwan, and the US are jockeying for position in Asia in the post Cold War years. Lewis and his co-authors examine the relationships, strategy and concerns of the key players, particularly Stalin, Mao and Kim during the post WWII years through the beginning of the Korean War. The authors, using documents made available recently from Russia and China, examine in detail these interactions, the negotiations of a new Sino-Soviet treaty and the flow of events which resulted in the particular balance between those powers in the Korean War. However, they also provide an excellent Summary chapter which tracks their key observations.

The events discussed in this book are 50 years in the past. However, the political orientation of that region, originally achieved in a kind of local balance, has frozen while the major players have ev! ! olved into significantly different entities and all of the personalities have changed. This means that the strain on the relationships of the NE Asian region is becoming increasingly acute as the pressures for realignment to a new balance increase.

The exercise of tracking the interplay of these strategists during the dynamic developments of the late 1940s, their concerns and priorities, sharply orients the mind to the delicate issues of balance which still exist. I recommend this book, and particularly the Summary chapter, to those who need to have the underpinnings of the NE Asian region in mind during the coming years of dynamic re orientation of the region. A clear understanding by policy makers might even result in a new balance which favors peace, democracy, stability and productive market relationships while respecting and responding to the immovable demands of territorial sovereignty, and national security required by each of these entities.

Gary Stradling

Interesting book. Focuses on the evolving relationship of Mao & Stalin. Both men had immense egos. Fascinating to understand that at one time even Mao had to rule thru consensus. Stalin by 49 rules thru fear, having already had shot anyone whose consensus didn't jive with his. But the title is misleading. The decision for war in Korea is only a factor in the last couple of chapters. These chapters are fascinating, to the point one wishes the book contained more info on the Korean war and less on the political relationship that developed from 45-49 between these two evil men.