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Notes -
We handed over half of Europe to the USSR to administrate because we trusted them so much, going so far as to gerrymander half of Berlin into an exclave 100 miles deep in the Soviet zone because what tactical and logistical problems could possibly come of that?
We then reduced our military force in Europe from 12M to 1.5M men in the space of 2 years, obviously not because that's a great way to prepare for a new conflict, but because we were dumb enough to believe the Soviets didn't want more conflict either. Stalin, on the other hand, was already making plans for a unified Soviet Germany in 1945, though it wasn't until their Berlin Blockade that the plans became too obvious to handwave away.
I sometimes wonder just how much William Bullitt exaggerated his posthumous quotation of FDR:
"I just have a hunch that Stalin is not that kind of a man. Harry [Hopkins] says he's not and that he doesn't want anything but security for his country, and I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace."
That seems like it almost has to be slander, right? Even if it's consistent with US policy, there's no way FDR could have been that naive in his beliefs? But I guess if someone could today think the US started the Cold War, with the benefit of hindsight, it's at least conceivable that FDR was legitimately equally foolish about his expectations for the future.
The Soviets' idea of "liberating" Poland, a country they originally invaded as part of their secret pact with Nazi Germany, was to halt their forces during the Warsaw Uprising to give the Nazis a chance to beat down on the Polish first. The use of the word "liberating" to describe strategy like that is utter nonsense.
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