Conversation

Replying to
This problem goes back to Napoleonic wars. Keeping Germany economically strong enough to pay reparations but politically weak enough to not be a threat and under the control of competing adversaries. The US was a new boundary condition of aid that kinda eventually solved it.
3
23
It’s a bit painful to read this intricate play-by-play since with 20/20 hindsight, partition of Germany, the wall etc seem inevitable. But it was not a death march. All parties were vying for other outcomes. Stalin was playing for all of Germany. Nobody wanted a 43 year impasse.
2
14
Interesting, 40% of German housing stock was destroyed in the war but 80% of the industrial capacity survived and there were more machine tools after the war than before, most new. Dumb bombing, but lucky for after. That’s why it was a prize worth playing for.
1
16
This whole thing seems bizarre now. They were trying to do hopelessly ill-posed Potsdam math and kinda finesse the cost of the war so nobody had to foot the bill. Still our own era has its own funny math.
2
13
6 futile weeks in Moscow with irreconcilable differences that only became really clear towards the end. Strong or weak Germany? Stalin proposed a plebiscite. Anyone who ever proposes a plebiscite has a plan to manipulate it. Stalin had done it in Poland already. FDR let him.
1
18
Many Covid reboot plans look like this 😬 Sidebar: a lot of the logic of the Marshall plan was selfish, focus on boosting aggregate European demand for American exports which faced a sharp slump if Europe didn’t recover. The plan was basically a Keynesian fiscal stimulus.
1
25
Goals for the Marshall plan were, in order: 1. Prevent communism spread 2. Prevent humanitarian crisis 3. Stop threat to American economy These elements were there in frankenplan. Just missing the blueprint for how.
1
26
Marshall appoints Kennan to head up the new Policy Planning Staff. He has to come up with a plan in 2 weeks. Moral of the story: if you rewrite a Long Telegram heralding a Cold War, you’ll get stuck with the thankless job of planning it.
2
14