After watching Dr. Strangelove, it became clear to me how leaders, including in the United States, seem to overthink the possibilities and ultimately end up causing more harm than good. I realize Dr. Strangelove is satire, but in all seriousness, it is sort of terrifying how easily plans with excessive safeguards can backfire and how easily atomic bombs can cause devastation. The United States and the Soviet Union put in so many safeguards that prevented the parties from stopping the bomb out of fear. Based on simply this movie, I think acting out of fear and paranoia can extensively backfire
Similarly, in Melvyn Leffler’s “The Emergence of an American Grand Strategy, 1945-1952,” seeing things through a retrospective lens allows me to see that Truman and his advisors were trying way too hard to stop the spread of communism without thinking of the lives at stake. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin had “promised Roosevelt … that the Soviet Union would declare war on Japan” (Leffler 69) which would reduce American causalities. Roosevelt in return would offer Stalin control of Manchurian ports. So, we can all see that WWII could’ve ended without Truman dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, which resulted in so much civilian bloodshed. Truman chose to drop the bomb for purely political reasons, as the bomb “offered leverage to shape the peace according to American desires” (Leffler 70). He and his advisors seemed to be in such fear of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism that they were willing to cause long-lasting harm to the Japanese. Obviously, this plan did not scare the Soviet Union in the way that Truman planned as the USSR just started building their own nuclear arms to balance the global shift of power.
So, was dropping the bomb worth it? Or was it just the leaders of the United States overthinking due to paranoia?
