Skip to content
By using Twitter’s services you agree to our Cookies Use. We and our partners operate globally and use cookies, including for analytics, personalisation, and ads.
  • Home Home Home, current page.
  • About

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Language: English
    • Bahasa Indonesia
    • Bahasa Melayu
    • Català
    • Čeština
    • Dansk
    • Deutsch
    • English UK
    • Español
    • Filipino
    • Français
    • Hrvatski
    • Italiano
    • Magyar
    • Nederlands
    • Norsk
    • Polski
    • Português
    • Română
    • Slovenčina
    • Suomi
    • Svenska
    • Tiếng Việt
    • Türkçe
    • Ελληνικά
    • Български език
    • Русский
    • Српски
    • Українська мова
    • עִבְרִית
    • العربية
    • فارسی
    • मराठी
    • हिन्दी
    • বাংলা
    • ગુજરાતી
    • தமிழ்
    • ಕನ್ನಡ
    • ภาษาไทย
    • 한국어
    • 日本語
    • 简体中文
    • 繁體中文
  • Have an account? Log in
    Have an account?
    · Forgot password?

    New to Twitter?
    Sign up
vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

Conversational account. For work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian. IKEA builder.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

Tweets

  • © 2020 Twitter
  • About
  • Help Center
  • Terms
  • Privacy policy
  • Imprint
  • Cookies
  • Ads info
Dismiss
Previous
Next

Go to a person's profile

Saved searches

  • Remove
  • In this conversation
    Verified accountProtected Tweets @
Suggested users
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @
  • Verified accountProtected Tweets @

Promote this Tweet

Block

  • Tweet with a location

    You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more

    Your lists

    Create a new list


    Under 100 characters, optional

    Privacy

    Copy link to Tweet

    Embed this Tweet

    Embed this Video

    Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Learn more

    Hmm, there was a problem reaching the server.

    By embedding Twitter content in your website or app, you are agreeing to the Twitter Developer Agreement and Developer Policy.

    Preview

    Why you're seeing this ad

    Log in to Twitter

    · Forgot password?
    Don't have an account? Sign up »

    Sign up for Twitter

    Not on Twitter? Sign up, tune into the things you care about, and get updates as they happen.

    Sign up
    Have an account? Log in »

    Two-way (sending and receiving) short codes:

    Country Code For customers of
    United States 40404 (any)
    Canada 21212 (any)
    United Kingdom 86444 Vodafone, Orange, 3, O2
    Brazil 40404 Nextel, TIM
    Haiti 40404 Digicel, Voila
    Ireland 51210 Vodafone, O2
    India 53000 Bharti Airtel, Videocon, Reliance
    Indonesia 89887 AXIS, 3, Telkomsel, Indosat, XL Axiata
    Italy 4880804 Wind
    3424486444 Vodafone
    » See SMS short codes for other countries

    Confirmation

     

    Welcome home!

    This timeline is where you’ll spend most of your time, getting instant updates about what matters to you.

    Tweets not working for you?

    Hover over the profile pic and click the Following button to unfollow any account.

    Say a lot with a little

    When you see a Tweet you love, tap the heart — it lets the person who wrote it know you shared the love.

    Spread the word

    The fastest way to share someone else’s Tweet with your followers is with a Retweet. Tap the icon to send it instantly.

    Join the conversation

    Add your thoughts about any Tweet with a Reply. Find a topic you’re passionate about, and jump right in.

    Learn the latest

    Get instant insight into what people are talking about now.

    Get more of what you love

    Follow more accounts to get instant updates about topics you care about.

    Find what's happening

    See the latest conversations about any topic instantly.

    Never miss a Moment

    Catch up instantly on the best stories happening as they unfold.

    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 27
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Damn autocorrect “Ken Anderson” 2 tweets up is “Kennan”

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Clay was son of a 3-time senator, but chose to go into the military. Star student but with conduct problems. Liked authoritah. Cartman, but straight-As type. Rose through logistics and engineering hierarchy without seeing combat until he was running Berlin by... my age right now.

      1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Clay’s orders were to run Berlin by the punitive/vindictive Morganthau Plan, which was both impossible in a devastated economy and something he didn’t want to do. So he used “disease and unrest” appropriations to run the show in more humane ways, thwarting the plan’s intent.

      1 reply 1 retweet 11 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      “There is no choice between becoming a communist at 1500 calories and a believer in democracy at 1000” — Clay in a 1946 cable to Washington.

      1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      JCS 1067, the original occupation directive https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/JCS_1067 

      1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Replaced by JCS 1779 which I can’t find online

      1 reply 0 retweets 4 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 28
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Clay blamed the French more than the Russians for the recovery quagmire, and thought Kennan was a dangerously dogmatic theory guy. Interesting tension there since he himself was on the theory side of the military in a way (didn’t get to see combat despite trying)

      1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Marshall unveils plan in a carefully drafted commencement speech at Harvard, centering humanitarian aid and inviting Europe to make an opt-in cooperative request for US aid. Language designed to nominally allow the Soviets to join but really intended to smoke out true intentions.

      1 reply 1 retweet 9 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Truman didn’t see even the draft of the speech. He stayed arms length away and called in the Marshall Plan rather than the Truman Plan so Republicans could comfortably vote for it.

      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Stalin surprised by the move. He still thought cooperyon his terms was possible and that his stalling and delaying tactics via Molotov were working. The Marshall-Stalin negotiations almost look like management-labor negotiations. He didn’t think the US had a BATNA. He was wrong.

      1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
      Show this thread
      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
      • Report Tweet
      • Report NetzDG Violation

      Kremlin correctly guesses the intent to keep the Soviets out and blame them for the schism. Decides to try to join the Plan to scuttle it from the inside, which appears to have been a Stalin gambit. Molotov joins talks and signals rest of nascent eastern bloc to do so too.

      12:35 AM - 29 Aug 2020
      • 12 Likes
      • micah.fyi Warren Koch ⚡🇦🇷Eduardo🇻🇪⚡ MilkersAnonymous Jerseyan 🇺🇸📜 RichardT 🕶 Jo 🇭🇰 Kunal Shah 🇺🇸🇬🇧
      1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Interesting that just as the US had a tradition of Kremlinology starting with Kennan, the Soviets had a tradition of Beltwayology trying to analyze US thinking. The two sides of the Cold War did understand each other.

          1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The Soviet view of the US as imposing economic imperialism to control Europe is not wrong. Marshall’s crew sought to do exactly that. The plan was nominally European in origin but the content was dictated by the US. “You set the valuation I’ll make the term sheet” basically.

          1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The Soviets fundamentally underestimated American economic strength. They thought the US would be forced to deal to save itself from an economic crisis caused by loss of trade. They didn’t realize the US had already written Eastern Europe out of the economic calculations.

          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The US needed an economically strong Germany to rebuild Europe and restart the world economy to serve American business interests, but not so badly that they’d compromise with the Soviets over it.

          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The Soviets really did drink their own kool-aid. Their negotiating stance was based on the assumption that America was on the verge of economic collapse due to loss of export markets. Because of course capitalism was destined to collapse any day now as foretold by doctrine.

          1 reply 1 retweet 13 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 29
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Stalin was supposedly the greatest strategic negotiator of his time. Molotov was a master of stalling and other tactics. Yet doctrine compromised them.

          2 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          If the US used dollar diplomacy to force a unified economic zone in the west, and suppress bilateral ism, the Soviets used bilateralism in the East to sort of divide and conquer their zone. The description reads like a tyrannical pater familias ruling brood by 1:1 intimidation

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          It’s interesting that labor leaders in UK and France reluctantly went along with the US despite communist sympathies. Stalin lost much of the ideological goodwill that Russia had earned from the global communist movement in previous decades.

          2 replies 1 retweet 13 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The Soviets wanted a unified Germany to milk for reparations (maximizing their share) to build their own empire, and a fragmented Europe. The US wanted a unified Western Europe and a fractured Germany, to force an economic schism, because it had kinda ceded the East already.

          1 reply 1 retweet 13 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Soviets bluffed thinking the US could be dragged into a long negotiation slide into a compromise that they could dominate. The US called the bluff and triggered the schism the Soviets were using as a threat. This feels familiar. Putin’s geopolitics are also “drag from weakness”

          1 reply 1 retweet 16 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The US does not come off looking too good here, but there was a core of generosity and goodwill behind the dollar authoritarianism. The Soviets though were fundamentally acting out of self-interest and bad faith and assumed the US was too.

          1 reply 1 retweet 12 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Aug 30
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          There’s a sense of “it’s okay to lie and cheat in dealings with evil capitalists” to their whole posture. We’re now at the breakdown point. Stalin has received spy intel that confirms US motives and he orders Molotov to back out of Marshall Plan talks.

          1 reply 1 retweet 17 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Molotov walks out of talks, accusing the U.K. and France of letting the US but it’s way into interfering in Europe, for its own economic self-interest. Not wrong but a half-truth that revealed the central failure of communist imagination to understand nonzero sum capitalist logic

          1 reply 0 retweets 11 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “Bevin did a superb job of getting Molotov out of Paris. He had the — by careful maneuvering... [He] had the courage to invite him and the bluntness to get rid of him.” — Truman commerce secretary W. A. Harriman on Ernest Bevin, British foreign minister https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Bevin …

          1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Looks like Bevin’s tactics relied on Kennan’s insight into how to goad Stalin into causing the schism when they could have stayed and done more damage. Acheson exits government to return to law practice. Robert Lovett takes over as driver of Marshall Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Lovett …

          1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Soviets try a last gambit on July 5, 6th, cabling satellites to attend plan launch but vote against it and walk out, to undermine launch. But then reverse course on July 7, not trusting the satellites, especially Czechoslovakia, to run the play. So July 7th is real Cold War start

          2 replies 0 retweets 9 likes
          Show this thread
        18. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Marshall has already committed to the schism mentally on April 15, so Stalin took nearly 3 months to catch on. Crucial slip that led to Soviets being successfully cast as the cause of the schism and interested in chaos over reconstruction. Which was not wrong.

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        19. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          It’s amazing to think that in 1947 Soviets genuinely believed Western capitalism would collapse under its internal contradictions and prepared Soviet Inion would step into vacuum via the communist parties they were sponsoring ideologically throughout the west.

          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
          Show this thread
        20. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The McCarthy era paranoia makes more sense now even if no more justifiable. The Soviets really were a grim specter of an alternative history/future looming over the imagination of the West.

          2 replies 0 retweets 11 likes
          Show this thread
        21. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          “The idea of European integration as a Trojan horse for German hegemony would become a staple of communist diplomatic doctrine.” “German rehabilitation wrongly given priority over assistance to its victims” Again not wrong... it’s what did happen...but failure of imagination.

          1 reply 0 retweets 12 likes
          Show this thread
        22. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Understood in the light of their best ideals rather than their worst hypocrisies, this was a contest of nonzerosum imagination+wealth motives vs zero-sum geopolitical justice motives. Soviets lost because they backed the worse idea, not by being geopolitically outmaneuvered.

          1 reply 1 retweet 23 likes
          Show this thread
        23. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 1
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Czechoslovakia makes a weak bid to join Marshall Plan, but is firmly reined in by Stalin. “I went to Moscow as the foreign minister of an independent sovereign state. I returned as a lackey of the Soviet government” — Jan Masaryk. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Masaryk …

          1 reply 2 retweets 12 likes
          Show this thread
        24. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 2
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Soviet bloc out. 16 nations meet to hash out the coordinated aid request to the US. Now France is the main bottleneck, wanting to keep Germany weak. The West had the same suspicions of US intentions as the Soviets. They were just even more suspicious of Soviets.

          1 reply 1 retweet 8 likes
          Show this thread
        25. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 2
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Bunch of committees to pull the proposal together in 6 weeks. This description reads like a major NSF or DARPA grant proposal coming together across a bunch of universities. The trick is to pitch what the US government wants you to pitch. Figure it out via backchannels.

          1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        26. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 2
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          This bit is a headache-inducing account of the intricate maneuvering to get France face-saving concessions while protecting German recovery. Ruhr kinda internationalized to give France some control over European steel, in return for stopping obstruction elsewhere.

          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        27. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 2
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          The sausage making is ugly and I can’t keep all the names and positions straight. Basically some economic efficiency in recovery was sacrificed to assuage French demands. Some reasonable, others not. There are no saints here but degrees of original sin in rebirth of Europe.

          1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        28. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 3
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Interesting tricky problem was rationalizing trade payments. All the countries lacked gold and dollars. Wild inflation everywhere. Belgium had a big trade surplus due to being liberated first, and getting production back on, and wants to keep that. Others say screw you,

          1 reply 0 retweets 9 likes
          Show this thread
        29. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 3
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Basically the precondition of American aid was continent-wide recovery coordination. Which required stable currencies and convertibility. Which required a completed recovery. Chicken-egg. Solved via payments union and trade quotas. Command economy it till you get to free market.

          1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        30. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 3
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          European currencies remained inconvertible till 1958 🤯 So it took 13 years for WW2 destabilization effects to be surgically stabilized with a command economy before free-float trade was possible again. How long for Covid destabilizations?

          1 reply 2 retweets 20 likes
          Show this thread
        31. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Sep 3
          • Report Tweet
          • Report NetzDG Violation

          Scheme required each country to fill out very detailed questionnaires on economic production. They mostly just made it up. The US thought they’d police each other’s accuracy. Instead they colluded in don’t-ask-don’t-tell mutual obfuscation. Including Americans running Germany.

          1 reply 0 retweets 14 likes
          Show this thread
        32. Show replies

      Loading seems to be taking a while.

      Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.

        Promoted Tweet

        false

        • © 2020 Twitter
        • About
        • Help Center
        • Terms
        • Privacy policy
        • Imprint
        • Cookies
        • Ads info