Thursday, September 23, 2004
- US-EU RELATIONS
Lecturer: R. Janssens
World War II & Aftermath: UN & Bretton Woods (*)
Group divided into two US Departments: State and War. This is mid-1942. Each Department has to come up with three different scenarios: Best Case, Worst Case, Realistic. Scenarios are to be "sold" to President Janssens-FDR.
Prof. Janssens. The idea of three scenarios was hated by Henry Kissinger, who thought it gave planners the opportunity to say, after the facts: "I told you so." There were three omissions in our presentations: (1) We were too concerned about the spread of communism; in the early 1940s, the real danger was thought to come from Nazi Germany, not from the Soviet Union.
(2) The ghost of the 1930s Depression played a key role in planning during the 1940s, something that was not apparent in our discussions; (3) In "selling" the scenarios, you failed to take into account the importance of personalities (FDR was indeed a very special character - - he once gave the green light to develop a plan to attack Japan with the help of ... bats!)
On the plus side, we correctly anticipated that the US would go it alone in the war against Japan, that is to say, without relying on Great Britain. While Winston insisted about the need to preserve the British Empire, FDR was less than impressed. He had visited, on his way to a meeting with Churchill, an African country of the Britihs Empire, and he was apalled by the standards of living of its people.
Finally, the President added that he would consider using of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, but that he would first have the plan analyzed by experts.
_______________
(*) Based on two readings from Paul Kennedy & William I. Hitchcock (eds.): From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Chapter 3, Melvyn P. Leffler: "American Grand Strategy from World War to Cold War, 1940-1950, " 55-78; chapter 5, Marc Trachtenberg: "The Making of a Political System: The German Question in International Politics", 103-119.
Lecturer: R. Janssens
World War II & Aftermath: UN & Bretton Woods (*)
Group divided into two US Departments: State and War. This is mid-1942. Each Department has to come up with three different scenarios: Best Case, Worst Case, Realistic. Scenarios are to be "sold" to President Janssens-FDR.
Prof. Janssens. The idea of three scenarios was hated by Henry Kissinger, who thought it gave planners the opportunity to say, after the facts: "I told you so." There were three omissions in our presentations: (1) We were too concerned about the spread of communism; in the early 1940s, the real danger was thought to come from Nazi Germany, not from the Soviet Union.
(2) The ghost of the 1930s Depression played a key role in planning during the 1940s, something that was not apparent in our discussions; (3) In "selling" the scenarios, you failed to take into account the importance of personalities (FDR was indeed a very special character - - he once gave the green light to develop a plan to attack Japan with the help of ... bats!)
On the plus side, we correctly anticipated that the US would go it alone in the war against Japan, that is to say, without relying on Great Britain. While Winston insisted about the need to preserve the British Empire, FDR was less than impressed. He had visited, on his way to a meeting with Churchill, an African country of the Britihs Empire, and he was apalled by the standards of living of its people.
Finally, the President added that he would consider using of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency, but that he would first have the plan analyzed by experts.
_______________
(*) Based on two readings from Paul Kennedy & William I. Hitchcock (eds.): From War to Peace: Altered Strategic Landscapes in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. Chapter 3, Melvyn P. Leffler: "American Grand Strategy from World War to Cold War, 1940-1950, " 55-78; chapter 5, Marc Trachtenberg: "The Making of a Political System: The German Question in International Politics", 103-119.
# posted by Agustin @ 4:36 PM 
