Clement Attlee was not a good Prime Minister. Discuss.

[Hauldren Collider]

it is quite incredible how naive you are sometimes HC. You think any country in history has had 'global security responsibilities' that were anything more than looking after their own national interests? Grow up ffs..

Yes! In fact, the United States leads the world in foreign aid and international charity. We've (kinda) figured out that global prosperity correlates to American prosperity.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Oh yes, I'm overlooking all your pointless dick-size-contest wars your petty monarchs engaged in for sport at the expense of the peasants, like the Crimean War.

What exactly did you think Grenada was? Though, we don't have monarchs, regardless of how imperial the Presidency gets.

[Hauldren Collider]

Grenada was a conflict whose significance is difficult to understate. And it was hardly at the expense of any peasants. Oh yeah, and it also was another example the United States picking up UK pieces for them.

[Tupac Shakur]

Don't be idiotic, you think they'd have simply sat and watched the Russians strengthen without doing anything? Europe was badly drained after WW2, but Russia had also suffered horrific casualties.

The USSR didn't need to strengthen at the end of WWII to be capable of conquering all of continental Europe if America had left, while the industry of the other European powers required years and sizable amounts of US aid to recover to a point where it still couldn't match Soviet industry. It is preposterous to think that Western Europe could have countered the Soviet threat without the aid of the United States.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Grenada was a conflict whose significance is difficult to understate.

Mostly because one can't understate the significance of something that was done for PR reasons.

[Hauldren Collider]

Mostly because one can't understate the significance of something that was done for PR reasons.

So you're going to compare it to Crimea, or Napoleonic wars, or any of the petty conflicts of European noblemen? Wars with innumerable casualties and tremendous economic damage?

[kentonio]

The USSR didn't need to strengthen at the end of WWII to be capable of conquering all of continental Europe if America had left, while the industry of the other European powers required years and sizable amounts of US aid to recover to a point where it still couldn't match Soviet industry. It is preposterous to think that Western Europe could have countered the Soviet threat without the aid of the United States.

By the end of the war the Soviets had a vast conscript army with aging equipment and limited supply. If you think they could have just happily marched on to the English Channel you are very mistaken.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The amusing thing is thinking that Crimea and the Napoleonic Wars are similarly petty. And yes, Crimea and Grenada were similarly pointless dick size waving (which is what you criticized the European conflicts for in the first place).

[kentonio]

So you're going to compare it to Crimea, or Napoleonic wars, or any of the petty conflicts of European noblemen? Wars with innumerable casualties and tremendous economic damage?

Try actually learning about the Napoleonics and the importance of various nations at that time before you talk nonsense. You're talking about a major war between every significant western power of the time.

[Tupac Shakur]

By the end of the war the Soviets had a vast conscript army with aging equipment and limited supply. If you think they could have just happily marched on to the English Channel you are very mistaken.

No, I'm very right. The British Army surely wasn't going to stop a Red Army that had just finished curbstomping the Wehrmacht.

[Hauldren Collider]

Nor would the French Army, which at the time basically didn't exist. So take the European militaries. Subtract the Germans, the French and the British. What's left?

Answer: The forces the United States kindly left behind to keep y'all from worshiping Stalin.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I have a hard time believing you actually don't know anything about the US President who dropped the bombs on Japan, oversaw the Marshall Plan, began the policy of containing the Soviet Union that lasted throughout the Cold War, carried out the Berlin Airlift, established NATO, and led America through the worst of the Korean War.

Also, Truman might not have been the best example you could've come up with for a "peacetime" leader.

It's funny how many of those achievements could include the words "alongside Attlee".

If it's any comfort, the only other leaders of the late 40s I can name at all are Stalin, Mao, Tito, Trujillo, Hoxha, Jinnah, Peron and Nehru.

[Hauldren Collider]

What about Charles de Gaulle, Chiang Kai-Shek and Ho Chi Minh?

ignorant brits

Although I suppose de Gaulle wasn't actually president until the 50's, he was an important figure.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Because De Gaulle wasn't President in the 40s, while Chiang Kai-Shek and Ho Chi Minh didn't have de facto control of their nations at the time.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Oh, add another one. David Ben-Gurion. That's 11 leaders out of about 200 nations at the time, so the point stands.