The Gaggle Book Club: "The Politics Of War: The World And United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945," By Gabriel Kolko
Each week, the Gaggle Book Club recommends a book for Gagglers to read and—most important—uploads a pdf version of it.
Our practice is that we do not vouch for the reliability or accuracy of any book we recommend. Still less, do we necessarily agree with a recommended book's central arguments. However, any book we recommend will be of undoubted interest and intellectual importance.
Today's book club selection is Gabriel Kolko's "The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945." Published in 1968, Kolko's book is a seminal work of historical revisionism on the origins of the Cold War. Kolko had been a prominent figure among the so-called New Left historians who challenged the prevailing accounts of the origins of the post-World War II rift between the Soviet Union and the West.
Kolko's background was in economic and social history, not military or diplomatic history. His earlier works, such as "The Triumph of Conservatism" (1963), offered a critique the Progressive Era, arguing that the regulatory reforms that it instituted in reality served corporate interests. "The Politics of War" was in a sense a continuation of this argument.
Kolko examined the final years of World War II, asserting that U.S. foreign policy was predominantly driven by economic imperatives and a desire to shape a global order conducive to American capitalist interests. Kolko argued that the most important priority for U.S. policymakers was the establishment of a world order that favored free-market capitalism, one that ensured that U.S. businesses had access to markets and natural resources.
Kolko also contended that the United States worked to suppress leftist and communist movements globally, viewing them as threats to capitalist expansion. Thus, according to Kolko, the origins of the Cold War lay not in Soviet aggression or fear of a supposed Soviet threat. No, the Cold War was a consequence of U.S. efforts to dominate the postwar world economically and politically.
Kolko's work was groundbreaking in combining economic analysis with diplomatic history. Also original was his emphasis on the continuity between U.S. wartime policies and postwar objectives.
Kolko examined the Allied delay in opening a Western front in Europe, something the Soviet Union had been demanding since 1941 in order to alleviate Wehrmacht pressure on its forces. According to Kolko, the postponement until 1944 was not due not so much to logistical challenges as to the U.S. desire to see Soviet power degraded, and Soviet influence in postwar Europe diminished.
Kolko detailed the myriad ways the United States worked to suppress leftist and communist movements in Europe and Asia during and after the war. U.S. support for conservative and often authoritarian regimes, according to him, was driven by fear of the spread of socialism and by concern over threats to American economic interests.
Gabriel Kolko's "The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945" was an important and influential work. There are obvious weaknesses in the argument, and the crude Marxist scheme can be a little tiresome at times. However, it inspired a slew of revisionist historians who undermined the cozy, self-flattering myths of the Cold War. If you want to get a balanced understanding of the origins of the Cold War, this book is a must-read.
