HIS404H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Appeasement
Document Summary
Most of the high-ranking of cials in the u. s. (viz. Secretary of state acheson) were against the war. Acheson is said to have given a green light to the war. The location also made it bizarre; most people thought that war would break out in europe rather than in asia. The u. s. had very little obvious connection to the peninsula. This was also a war of decolonization, as opposed to conquest or defence. This was a civil war in an area of relative disinterest to the u. s. that emerges because of the end of japanese imperial control. Yet, here you have the u. s. involving itself. In some respects, it could be comparable to cuba, which was an anti-imperial war against the spanish; but this was 90 miles away from the u. s. The decision to go to war was also within a multilateral arena rather than a unilateral one because of the involvement of the un.
