Was the Cold War a Deception?

The American Enterprise Institute's Hal Brands and investigative journalist Gareth Porter debate the necessity of the Cold War.

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Was the Cold War a Deception?

Hal Brands and Gareth Porter debate the resolution, "The Cold War was a necessary response by the United States to a Soviet and Chinese threat to the global balance of power."

Hal Brands, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, defends the resolution. He has authored multiple books on the Cold War, including The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us About Great-Power Rivalry Today.

Arguing against the resolution is Gareth Porter, an award-winning journalist and historian who authored The CIA Insider's Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War.

The debate is moderated by Soho Forum director Gene Epstein.

• Post production: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[Don't look at me! (I miss having inflation)]

Beats the shit out of a hot war.

[Marylandman, Battling for Truth Justice, and the American Way]

Right, because authoritarian Marxist regimes armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons are never a problem.

[BigFish92672]

FDR maimed and murdered 1,000,000 Americans in order to spread Soviet communism globally. THAT'S the Real Problem, government school

[Incunabulum]

That it might not have been *necessary* does not mean it's a deception.

[Marshal]

He's arguing it was a "deception" which resulted in the communist takeover of dozens of actual countries? I guess it shows there's no argument a leftist won't make to protect the team.

[sarcasmic]

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know. Ho Chi Minh asked the US for help in gaining independence from France. US said screw you France is our ally. So he got help from the commies instead. Take a guess at what that resulted in? If you said a communist takeover of a country you’d be correct! But why? Try giving it a thought or two before launching into your usual tirade about how I’m a hypocrite and I’m a leftist and listing off a bunch of things I supposedly believe before attacking those things with gusto. Por favor?

[Marshal]

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know

Wrong again, but you're used to that.

So he got help from the commies instead.

The framing here suggests he would not have approached "the commies" if we had agreed to support independence. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact he founded the Vietnamese Communist Party long before he asked for our support for their independence.

Take a guess at what that resulted in? If you said a communist takeover of a country you’d be correct!

Of course if we had agreed it would also have resulted in a communist takeover of the country and the resulting mass-murders. which sarc's criticism of our opposition shows he accepted.

Try giving it a thought or two

As usual sarc heard a couple of snippets from his talking points memo and concludes he must know more than everyone else since he literally new nothing to that point. It has never occurred to him that others could possibly develop knowledge outside his propaganda network. We're so far ahead of him he can't even see us which is the source of the saying "he's so far behind he thinks he's ahead."

I’m a hypocrite and I’m a leftist

While true the core problem is that you're an idiot. But they're not exactly independent variables since you have to be an idiot to be a leftist.

[Don't look at me! (I miss having inflation)]

Ooh! Look out! You might get “muted”.

[Nobartium]

Here’s something I bet you didn’t know

As the drunkard has devolved into copypasta, this is doubly retarded.

[JohnZ]

The result of which was the Viet Nam war that wasted 2 million Vietnamese and 56,000 young American boys not to mention the lasting physical and emotional wounds left behind. The land nearly destroyed by rampant use of toxic defoliants which have lasting effects on those exposed to it, the loss of so many lives so that LBJ(Lying Bastard Johnson) buddies in the MIC could rake in the dollars.
A war that served no purpose what so ever except to enrich only a few people.
Today the people of Viet Nam are struggling to deal with the numbers of birth defects caused by Agent Orange while much of the land has been rendered useless for agriculture.
It only gets worse. Today Viet Nam is beginning to rebuild itself and already has free enterprise manufacturing.

[MWAocdoc]

This reminds me of the movie, "A Tiger Walks" in which the keeper torments the big cat relentlessly until the tiger finally gets a chance to attack the keeper and escape. Then the keeper, after provoking the animal to violence claims: "See?! I TOLD you he was dangerous!" American imperialists stuck our noses into every available nook and cranny around the golbe to expand American trade interests, propping up tinhorn dictators nominally supporting "democracy" and when their citizens rebelled against the outsiders, American politicians said: "See?! We TOLD you the commies were dangerous!"

[BigFish92672]

It was FDR maiming and murdering 1,000,000 Americans in order to spread Soviet communism globally that was the True Deception, government school

[JohnZ]

The war in Viet Nam was one of the worst disasters in U.S. foreign policy up to that date. Absolutely nothing good came out of that god damn war except more profits for Raytheon, Boeing and Pepsi Co.
The awful death and destruction done to that nation was in itself a crime against humanity and LBJ could have cared less. The worst was yet to come as Sec. Def. McNamara's insane idea:
McNamara's Folly/
https://youtu.be/_J2VwFDV4-g

[MWAocdoc]

There are so many things wrong with the framing of this resolution that I don't know where to start. Perhaps first: the concept of the "cold war" is nebulous at best. Next: "the balance of power" is not only nebulous, but even if you accept the premise, it certainly does not justify war, either cold or traditional! I start from the position that the only justification for war is self-defense against a military attack from outside. If that is true, it could not matter less how much of the rest of the world exists under hegemony of the communists. We have no "vital interests" anywhere else in the world. The "domino theory," "making the world safe for democracy" and "brushfire wars" were all spurious and manufactured for the sole purpose of political aggrandizement using fear as the button to be pushed. There is some reason to believe that the Cold Warriors knew for sure that neither the Warsaw Pact nor the Chicoms were a direct military threat to the North American Continent at any time but beat the war drum anyway. Aside from the Cuban missile crisis where a military response was probably called for, the people were bombarded with propaganda so the military industrial complex could prosper. Mutually assured destruction seems to have worked quite well since there has been no nuclear weapons "exchange" since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And we still have to justify the Cuban missile crisis when Russia pointed out the basing of American nuclear weapons on Russia's doorstep in Turkey at the same time. The paper tiger of Russia's vaunted military machine has been revealed in Ukraine, with reason to believe that the Pentagon and the CIA knew of its impotence all along.