 The main purpose of this talk is to show how American officials sought to translate victory over Japan into a lasting peace in Asia. I'm primarily concerned with the interaction between military planning operations and foreign policy. I'll state my thesis early. The US was unprepared for victory in the summer of 1945. There you have it. The demands of a two front war had dictated American objectives, the achievement of a united China friendly to the United States and a liberated Korea fell into the category of aspirational goals that were likely to be beyond the reach of American military power. Franklin Roosevelt also supported a gradual end to European colonialism in Southeast Asia but strategic necessity placed those areas out of the reach of US operations. On the other hand, control of Japan and Western Pacific were deemed essential to American security. So American strategy concentrated on achieving those goals above all others. So I'll say American strategy was linear and sequential. Japan came first everything else came later. It was a strategy that was informed by aware and awareness of limits and restraint. And then the war abruptly ended months before the Americans expected it to suddenly the Asian mainland was in reach of US military power. It's one of the ironies of the war and certainly Chiang Kai check China's leader must have thought so that American power on the Asian mainland crested in the months after the war had ended. The American position and post war East Asia resulted from a fundamental from fundamental strategic choices made early in the war. I'll talk about those in a minute and then a series of ad hoc decisions and improvised responses to the chaos that followed in the wake of Japan's collapse. So the stage was set by its fundamental objectives, but then this sudden opportunity was created by Japan surrender. And the decisions the Americans took at that point would then kind of enmeshed on the United States on the Asian mainland. Those decisions did much to influence the course of events in Asia for decades to come. But despite the surge in American power, the US could not make those developments on the mainland conform to American interests. There was no clean break with the past when Japan surrender. Japan's rampage through Asia had shattered old empires and abetted the growth of revolutionary movements throughout the region. Total war had produced Japan's defeat but at the time of Japan surrender, more than 3 million undefeated Japanese troops remain at their posts in the field. As a force in being the Japanese Imperial Army held its ground in a political no man's land standing somewhere between the restoration of the pre war order and the forces of revolution. Taking a surrender of Japanese troops was a military operation fraught with political implications. The reasons made to affect Japan surrender entangled US forces on the mainland of Asia for the next two years so between 45 and 47 and help to shape the next several decades of international relations in Asia. So I want to talk about the sort of fundamentals American strategy first and begin with the tensions that existed within that strategy. The American strategy for victory. Was focused on your first I mean everybody's aware of that that meant resources went primarily towards defeating the Germans with the understanding that the Japanese were not be able to stand for very long. Once Germany was defeated. At the time the United States adopted the policy of unconditional surrender. Now unconditional surrender was meant to be a prelude to the transformation of the defeated enemy and unconditional surrender could only be achieved through the invasion of Japan's home islands. You know there would have to be a large military operation in order to achieve the goal of unconditional surrender which was just the first step towards securing peace in the Pacific. Now, as Americans developed this strategy, they were also American military leaders Franklin Roosevelt George Marshall in particular the chairman of the Joint Chief Staff. He was aware of the likelihood of war weariness entering into the American public. Thinking about the war. The longer it dragged on and the more the casualties mounted. So in order to fend off this war we are in this from developing as long as possible. And a joint chiefs made concessions to the home front. One was the what's known as the 90 division gamble, which was basically a decision to mobilize fewer divisions than originally expected and the thought here was that that would allow the US to provide supplies to its allies. The Russians to Chinese and the British primarily. Right, but it would also reduce the strain on a domestic economy and allow for the availability of more consumer goods, which it was hoped would then you know sort of in a sense buy off American support for the war, a little bit longer. The problem is of course the reliance on 90 divisions meant that by the end of the war the Americans were getting pretty thin with their frontline troops. And that was particularly the case during the battle the bulge. Okay, so. The joint concession to the home front was a program of partial demobilization that was going to begin when Germany surrendered. And this is the idea that GIs would have accumulated points through their length of service, how many dependence military valor if you won medals, time in a combat zone you got bonus points and bonus points for being overseas that sort of thing. And once you cross this threshold and points you would be sent home. After Germany surrender. Well, I mean that was, you know, a concession to the public. And also to the GIs to let them know that, you know, they would not be expected to fight the duration of the war if they landed in North Africa say in 1942. Okay, this whole idea of Europe first unconditional surrender which required an invasion and concessions the home front on mobilization. They were all political choices that tip the scales against the achievement of a timely victory in the Pacific and another big problem was geography and and logistics and I sort of always like this. I like this map here. You know this one really is worth the thousand words. I think it gives you a pretty clear idea of the challenges that the Americans were facing notice you can't even see Japan in this map and nor can you see Hawaii this is just a Southwest West Pacific which gives you an idea of the demands that would be placed upon the Americans as they westward across the Pacific. There's a sort of old cliche that amateurs talk strategy and professionals talk logistics. And I think this map sort of drives home the logistical challenges that the Americans are facing and waging war against Japan. Alright, despite that by. In the beginning of 1944. You could see a rising tempo of operations. The addition of fast carriers. The implementation of leap frogging along for example the northern coast of New Guinea by General MacArthur and then also island hopping through the Central Pacific by Admiral Nimitz. The capture of the Marianas will all had begun to take place and this is a pretty handy chart showing you can see how the pace of operations increases in 1944. And continues through 1945 as well so you can get a sense of kind of increasing momentum. And as the Americans move the cross into Pacific now at the same time. China was on the verge of collapse. The Japanese had launched an operation each ago, in which they really put Chiang Kai checks regime in peril. Several years of a kind of stalemated conflict it was, it was clear from this operation in this offensive that Japanese had the ability to move when they wanted to in China. And they had been provoked by long range bombing. I think that the US with conducting out of China and they attack the bases and. And in doing so as I said they imperiled Chiang Kai checks regime. This precipitated a crisis in China. Between Americans and the Chinese and it led to the recall of General Joseph still well, who was the general staff to Chiang Kai check. And so Chiang Kai check sort of one that round, but at the same time China moved into strategic irrelevance. As the Americans began to run their bombing raids on Japan from the Marianas and they pulled out of China. China remain politically important. The Americans were determined not to commit one of the classic blunders in history and we all know that that is that it's, it's no land war in Asia, right. So the Americans, we're going to leave Chiang Kai check and the nationalists to their own devices for the, for the time being. The Russians would have to defeat the Japanese. And that gets settled and worked out at Yalta in 1945. Now I want to stop here for a minute and just point out that you know the United States had been a great power in Asia. Before World War two by virtue of its possession of the Philippines. And the treaty rights it held in China. The U.S. didn't control, you know territorial concessions in China. They didn't have huge investment in China. Intermittently beginning with Theodore Roosevelt, the Americans had appeased or deferred to Japan. In Northeast Asia and Manchuria and especially Korea. So, in effect, you know, was what you know Americans certainly were sympathetic to the Chinese when they were attacked by Japan. They remain so although less so as war dragged on supportive of China, you know, something you might call the open door constituency that consisted of missionaries. Henry Loos, the publisher of Time Magazine, who was a child of missionaries. Some business leaders, not a lot of them. You know saw a future in China and they talked about China all the time in the sort of future tense. But, you know, in the midst of the war, the United States wasn't going to commit. You know, a lot of its resources to assisting China at that time and so Russia was going to handle the Japanese army in Northeast Asia. So, beginning in 1945. We see the final campaigns as the United States was closing in on Japan. Land in the Philippines, take Iwo Jima in February and battle Okinawa begins in April on April 1. Right. And all this is in preparation for operation downfall this two stage. This is an occasion of Japan's home islands with the first one you can see the sort of green arrows pointing toward the southern most of the main islands to use you. And the second operation was going to car and that was going to aim at the Tokyo plane, and that would require. The invasion of troops from Europe. Those troops who were not demobilized would be transported out to the Pacific. And follow on in the invasion of the Tokyo plane. This is just at this moment. As the Americans were gearing up for the invasion of Japan that Germany surrendered in May. And that triggered the demobilization that I had mentioned earlier and this is where the home front began to weigh in. Americans sort of started looking. Once Germany surrendered started looking past Japan and and towards peace. And they started demanding the rapid demobilization of troops bring daddy home was the cry that went up people sent baby shoes to their congressman. You know telling them try and get this demobilization to move more quickly. The whole process of demobilization was complicated because it was going to take place simultaneously with redeployment that redeployment from Europe that I talked about and so what you had to do. Sift out those soldiers who had the requisite number of points to be demobilized and returned home out of active divisions and then take what was left basically and shape those units up. Give them training for combat in the Pacific, transport them across the Atlantic, across the continental United States and out to the Pacific. The head of the services of supply, like in this to moving the entire city of Philadelphia to the Philippines. Which actually would probably sounds like a good idea to some people that but um, General Marshall who was not given to exaggeration said this was the biggest administrative task in history that what needed to be done. And you had so you had this problem you had to figure out how many points everybody had and and as it turns out a lot of people who had the highest points where the company clerks, and they were the ones who kept the records. Right. And so if they left, then you had to, you know, you were left trying to figure out who else qualify and on top of that points were always being adjusted because your army was awarding campaign ribbons. On the fly and so some divisions that were getting ready to move back across the Atlantic. Suddenly would lose as much as 2000 infantry men who who now had direct was a point and had to be pulled out. And then somehow replacements we're going to have to be found for them so this is a incredibly complex situation which was taking place in the mix of the demobilization of the soldiers and trying to get them back. I've got the declassified plan for that right here. As you can see this is an intensely complex operation here a rule Goldberg like operation somebody might actually be thinking. On top of this. There was a growing demand from the business community from labor. From the president's new president, Harry Truman his economic advisors were all demanding that the United States had to pay more attention to the idea of economic reconversion. They had to begin shifting to a peacetime economy, if they waited too long until the war ended, they would be hit with a massive depression, people wouldn't be able to find jobs, factories wouldn't be able to retool the peacetime production fast enough. And so the idea was that the argument was they need to do this more gradually and that meant, you know, letting some soldiers out early coal miners for example railroad workers, which the army refused to do. It also meant a loosening of these restrictions on their production of consumer goods. Again, the army was insistent that their needs came first and it was primarily the army that was placing these demands on the home front economy. So these all these factors were converging and creating a sort of sense of strategic perplexity right I mean how is the United States going to keep everything together for the invasion of Japan that is going to be coming soon. Add into this then I mean some people said well you know here's the shortcut. So why don't we deal with this issue. Why don't we modify unconditional surrender. And in particular, the key argument was let the Japanese keep the emperor. Right. The modification of unconditional surrender but it was really a modification it was a compromise that was being argued this way we can get the war over with sooner wouldn't have to invade the home islands. Well, that might pay other dividends as well there was a growing chorus within the administration. And they're saying you know, we get the war over with. Soon enough, we can get it done without the help of the Russians. And the Russians won't get a foothold in Northeast Asia. And that's this cartoon kind of captures that argument because defenders of unconditional surrender. So they condemned what they saw as this kind of appeasement on the, on the part of you can call them sort of proto cold warriors, and you can see this sign you know this is a sort of country five congressman labeled our Russophobes and Russia can't be trusted will have to fight them sooner or later right your congressman and then the Japanese propagandist is carrying his placard impossible for Russian allies to stick together. Eventual bust up will make for opportunity for illustrious sons of heaven to negotiate a soft peace. So this cartoon and obviously is critical of the those people who wanted to modify on conditional surrender and they, they have the character saying it's remarkable coincidence we're both working the same side of street and so they were accusing people they refer to some of them privately as emperor worshippers of really almost conniving with the Japanese. You know, forming a sort of secret alliance against the Russians. The debate that took place at this time got pretty bitter. So all this was taking place on the eve of the last summit conference that would be in Potsdam right. And on the eve of that conference, sizing up the strategic situation the army's top planning group reminded General Marshall would quote the US as a matter of public will positively supports the integrity of China as a nation. They went on to say, however, whether the future will bring a different definition of what constitutes China proper cannot be said with certainty. So they were acknowledging as they plan for the invasion of Japan that China might turn out to be a lost cause for the Americans chunk I check might go under they couldn't confront the Russians on the mainland. But the army was saying, as long as we control Japan and the offshore islands will succeed in our main goal, which is to keep the rest of the world out of the Pacific. So that was the idea. Alright, so the operational boundaries that were agreed to at Potsdam between the British and the Russians and the Americans. So we've confirmed this single minded emphasis on the invasion of Japan. To prepare for the Soviet Union's entry into the war, the American Joint Chiefs and the Soviets established an operational boundary to prevent clashes between the converging forces. Right, and this line ran through the career islands and bisected Korea at the 41st parallel. That line fell into the American zone of operations. But that boundary was just for air and see operations only the Americans were not expected to bring troops assure on the Asian mainland or the Korean Peninsula. In order to further pair down American responsibilities in Asia the Americans and the British agreed to expand the boundaries of the Southeast Asia command Americans referred to this Southeast Asia command its acronym was SEAC. They said it really stood for save England's Asian colonies. And they included Indochina below the 16 parallel, all of Thailand, Java, the Celebes and Borneo. The British also wanted to add Indochina north of the 16 parallel, but the Americans said that had to stay in the China Theater, because at some point, the Chinese were going to mount an offensive and they would need to control that flank of their offensive. And so that they said they might, you know, at a later date, change the eliminate that division of Indochina for operational purposes. But for the time being it would stay in place and that turns out to be pretty crucial for the history of Vietnam. Right, so the Potsdam declaration issued at the conference settled with bait over the emperor. There was nothing no promises to the emperor at that point. But American strategy was thrown into disarray by the Japanese reinforcement of Kyushu by these problems of redeployment that I mentioned and the insistence by Truman's closest advisors. The army's invasion plans were risking economic disaster at home. At the 11th hour, the Navy joined in by calling for a reexamination of the plans for downfall, which had, it had only tentatively approved back earlier in the summer. All right, so the US, the use of the atomic bomb in August cut short then a growing debate over the war's purpose on conditional surrender or something less. The swift decision where none had seemed likely. It also obscured the extent to which American strategy had been unhinged by Japanese resistance and the fishering of unity at home, which is something I think on the 75th anniversary of the end of the war we need to remember. So what followed then was on the night of August 10th and 11th members of what was called the state war Navy coordinating committee. The US planners began to draft documents that would spell out the steps to be taken by Japan in order to complete the surrender and key among them was what was known as general order, number one. By the morning of August 11, the territorial provisions of the general order were completed. According to the draft all Japanese troops in China, not counting Manchuria, Formosa and Indochina north of the 16 parallel were to surrender to the representatives of Changkai check. The Russians would take the surrender of Japanese forces in Manchuria, Korea north of the 38th parallel. Southern Soccaline and British forces would then get Southeast Asia. And the Americans would divide up the Pacific MacArthur taking Japan Nimitz taking central Pacific islands. Okay, this is what's known as general order number one and you can see the division here at a clip Korea to 38th parallel. The division was made by a couple of kernels looking at a wall map and actually a national geographic map of Korea. One of those kernels was Dean Rusk who would subsequently be John Kennedy's secretary of state. And you can see that the idea is to sort of divide up the surrender areas. And the staff officers were able to do this pretty quickly, because they simply took those operational boundaries that have been devised in Potsdam, and then turn them into general order number one. The one exception was Korea the State Department wanted American forces to occupy a portion of Korea to ensure that the United States play a role in determining the political future of that former Japanese colony. That wouldn't have been possible. Had Japan continued the war, but now all of a sudden the idea of moving into Korea. Seemed like a possibility. General order number one was written as if all in the anticipated allied operations were proceeding as planned. That wasn't a case, the Chinese were still tucked way back in sort of Southwestern China. And now battens forces were nowhere near Malaya, Singapore, or Indonesia at that point. Nevertheless, Japanese troops in those areas had would be ordered to surrender to the designated allied commanders. That is whenever they showed up. Every time the Japanese were expected to retain control of the areas occupied and that's crucial. On a geopolitical level to do the general order favored the interest of the great powers at the expense of the insurgent anti colonial forces in China, meaning communist, but also Korea, Indochina and Indonesia. The order number one provided the means through which the United States, Britain and China sought to employ Japanese military forces for allied purposes now. It soon became apparent in China, for example, that it would take weeks for the nationalists Chinese to move into the key coastal areas held by the Japanese. In the meantime, the communists said they were going to ignore general order number one and take to surrender wherever they could. Ultimately, to forestall the communist efforts, the US dispatched Marines into northern China, somewhere between 40 and ultimately 60,000 of them, but they also relied on the Japanese troops to hold their ground. Until the nationalists took over. And some of you may be familiar with this memoir of EP sledge about the Pacific war in fact it became I think for that televised series, one of the basic sources. Sledge's memoir actually continued beyond the surrender of Japan and talked about his experience in North China when he entered with the Marines. He referred to him and his fellow Marines as fugitives from the law of averages, you know they had, they had survived combat in the Pacific and now all of a sudden they were being thrust into the midst of a civil war between the communists and nationalists and they didn't particularly like it. As it turns out. Here they are arriving. In Tianxin and as sledge points out and that they finally published that portion of the memoir separately. It was published posthumously as I think China Marine, or China memoir I can't remember exact title. It notes that as the Marines entered Tianxin there was a sign up that said welcome US Army. They didn't really care for that. Okay, so there are other complications with the general order, particularly in Indochina the French mistrusted Chinese intentions and they had objected immediately. The Americans decided to let the Chinese occupy northern Indochina. And French concerns were born out when the Chinese nationalist troops occupied the colony north of the 16 parallel. The Chinese enriched themselves at French expense, and more significantly, they allowed the Vietnam that is the communist led Vietnamese resistance movement to declare independence from France through the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and so they actually gave Ho Chi Minh kind of a head start in this period. General order number one was written in haste and revised the process of ad hoc negotiation between the allies. In the process of trying to arrange an orderly surrender that can ported with the great powers interests. The United States became more deeply involved in China's civil strife and and I'll show you they were there ostensibly to oversee the repatriation of the Japanese but they admitted. Dean Atchison for example who was under Secretary of State said well, you know, the, all we had to do is, is, you know, have pointed Japanese in direction of the ships, and they would have marched right on them it's not as if they needed the Marines there for that. So the United States became enmeshed in China's civil strife and you can see they were shipping nationalists north then, and again they were supposed to be there to relieve the Marines and assume control of the Japanese but instead they began to march north into Manchuria to try and to and hold that area. The US had also partitioned the Korean Peninsula and unexpectedly aided the revolutionary movement in Indochina. The general orders impact is still felt today in the division of the Korean Peninsula, the ongoing dispute between Japan and Russia over the occupation of the southern Korean islands what Tokyo calls the northern territories. One collapse of Japanese resistance in August, 45 created an unexpected opportunity to influence events on the mainland and possibly check Soviet power in the region. And seeking to shape events on the mainland, the administration of Harry Truman confronted the anomalous nature of American power, it amassed invasion forces. It's a, excuse me, it's amassed invasion forces are models and planes and ships. And of course it's nuclear monopoly gave the United States the appearance of irresistible might. The American public, which had brought that juggernaut into being and the soldiers sailors and Marines who wielded it against the enemy had a voice in how it would be used. In the final months of the conflict we saw Americans had begun debating the purposes of the war, and the price, they were prepared to pay to achieve those ends. The abrupt end of the conflict provided only a brief interlude in that debate. In the aftermath of Japan's defeat public debate over American aims in Asia, resumed in an atmosphere of growing dissatisfaction with the disposition of American forces overseas and this leads to what become known as the GI mutinies in late 1945. Eventually protest replaced debate as Americans voice their contending views on the meaning of victory and the obligations of world leadership and here's the protest in actually 46 and vanilla. I keep looking for my former mentor in here, he was in this group. He says we shall never forget what you have done words are cheap, get us home. seismic forces were at work in Asia at the end of the war the civil conflict that roiled Asia was the consequence of vast inequalities and social dislocation rooted in hundreds of years of exploitation by imperialist and indigenous elites. The bid to dominate Asia was the latest chapter in that saga and banishing the older imperialist however Japan and shattered the myth of white supremacy and nourished nationalist aspirations throughout the region. Japan's defeat reopened the question of who would rule Asia, the surrender touched off a frenzy of expectation and opportunistic maneuvering by the great powers seeking to reclaim lost empires or create new ones. The end of the war also created new opportunities for those revolutionary nationalists. Between 45 and 47 American military and political officials struggle to build a stable Japan and non Communist China and a newly independent Korea free from independent turmoil and great power manipulation. Americans also hope that the example of Philippine independence would serve as a model for the creation of an independent non Communist Vietnam. Instead, French obduracy led to the admin insurgency. The Philippine government's protection of entrenched interest provoked a rebellion among the peasants of central Luzon, and in South Korea and authoritarian government took power and held on to it by brutally suppressing its opposition. Japan in contrast seemed a haven of tranquility in the midst of all this turmoil and looming overall was the problem of China. In 2007 US was moving towards a return to this strategic priorities, it had adopted at the beginning of the war. The Truman doctor and a Marshall plan, aim to secure Europe. Japan once again became a chief priority in the Pacific, the beginnings of a reverse course in the occupation signal that security there took precedence over reform. After the failure of General Marshall's mediation effort in China the US began to disengage from the mainland and there you see the giant Marines headed home. South Korea was handed off to the UN still the American presence lingered on the mainland military advisory groups in China and South Korea and a small marine contingent in Qingdao revealed an ambivalent attitude towards the Truman administration's new offshore policy. The administration support for South the South Korean government and its continued congressional endorsement of Tonkai sex national regime further frustrated any attempts to make a clean break from the mainland. For the moment, the situation seen manageable more critical problems elsewhere in Europe and the Middle East claim the administration's attention and its resources. So we're kind of back to where we started few Americans could imagine that within three years United States would become France's chief source of aid in a war against the Vietnam. Or the United States would be thrust once more into the middle of the Chinese Civil War, while American troops battle a dead to a deadly stalemate on the Korean Peninsula. Okay, that's, that's it. Thank you so much. That was a wonderful presentation. Thank you. If anyone in the, any attendees have any questions please put them in the q amp a section and I can see them and I can ask. Professor go here. In the meantime, I had a few questions. I was wondering if you could answer. Yeah. My first is from an American perspective, historically looking at how they viewed the South, primarily South Asian European colonies. How did that differ from how they viewed Japan's colonial holdings like Korea. And I, you know the Americans had deferred to the Japanese and Korea. For much of that. The first half of the 20th century. And in fact in the summer of 1945. Herbert Hoover recommended to Truman that the Japanese be allowed to keep Korea, even after they surrender. Roosevelt believe that the war had demonstrated that the caught that these colonial empires were a thing of the past and and really had instead of contributing to kind of international stability had become a source of conflict. And so it was his hope that he could at least begin I mean he was constantly on Churchill to, for example, Grand Independence to India, and the like and you know and exactly how do you force an ally to do that of courses. You know that Roosevelt never figured out. But I think, you know, it. I think Americans were probably to the extent that they thought about this, they were probably split. You know those people who were generally sympathetic towards the Japanese leaders who had governed in the 1920s or so. Professor Joseph grew and some of the Japan specialists felt like Hoover, you know the Koreans couldn't govern themselves. And Japan had done a good job in Korea, you know they had led this civilizing mission, but same token a lot of the members of what was known as the old diplomatic corps and foreign service the people who served in European posts. They had the same feeling about the British in Southeast Asia and the Dutch you know they, they dismissed the idea that these revolutionary movements were real they, they said it's really Japanese propaganda. And so they took the European point of view, but you know elsewhere in foreign service. People who were like part of what they refer to as the YMCA crowd, you know these people who had had experience. Maybe in China they had grown up as children of missionaries, there's a definite kind of social kind of class difference cultural difference and you know they might have gone to public universities rather than Ivy League schools. They were more sympathetic to these revolutionary movements they saw them as real. And I think, for the most part, you know what Americans, the public demonstrated for example, at the end of war was they, whatever happened to those places they didn't want Americans involved. Right, so I don't know if that answers your question but I think it doesn't. I have another question here. Okay. Generally, how would you say that the lasting perception of America in East Asia, how East Asians perceived Americans. How would you say that that was reflected by the eventual unconditional surrender by Japan and the kind of forcefully that the US went about getting that surrender. You mean, how did other people in Asia see America's commitment to unconditional surrender or how did other East Asian countries and other East Asian people feel lasting beyond the end of the war about America given that they had committed so far. I think attitudes were positive, except, of course, the US lost some of that goodwill through use of the atomic bombs and the fire bombing of Japan I mean sort of famously in the Tokyo work crimes trial there are, I think you know for example the representative from India. You know pointed out that that the the allies were colonial powers to and they had committed what could be considered atrocities in the war. And so there was I think a draining off of some of that goodwill. I think the Chinese Chinese leadership certainly welcome the US defeat of China complete defeat of Japan rather. But Chiang Kai-shek remained bitter that he had not gotten more support from the United States during the war. And he expected that when the war ended, and I think was surprised and disappointed that it didn't didn't arrive when it did so. And you know there was a considerable I think dismay in Korea at you know the American decision the idea was Roosevelt thought well we'll have a four power trust issue that his main goal was to make sure that China and Russia didn't fight over Korea. So I mean the British had to do with Korea in fact the Americans were surprised when the war ended. That the British didn't plan to send troops there. I mean that came as a total surprise to army planners and and and they didn't until the Korean War actually. And Koreans themselves and I said you know this we're ready for independence and there was a pretty significant grassroots resistance movement. on the peninsula to Japanese colonialism and the Americans kind of when they came in they took the side of a lot of the people who had collaborated with the Japanese. So I think they missed opportunities in there to get more support than they then they did actually I mean probably that the closest to unanimous support they got was in Japan. You know, through the occupation. Thank you here we have another question here. Did the Chinese nationalist government think that the US should have helped them more to fight the CCP during the Chinese Civil War. I don't know if if. I'm sure John Kasek hope that would be the case. But at the very least, he expected to get the, you know, supplies, the armaments he needed to wage war against the communists and one of the reasons why he was a very enthusiastic about this plan to use China as a base to bomb Japan and the sea lanes around Japan is, of course that the he hoped that the Chinese would get an Air Force out of that, which would assist him, measurably against the communists. So I think he was distressed that he didn't get more support I don't think he say expected necessarily Americans to fight the communist but but the idea that I mean he was appalled when American suggested that he, you know, negotiate a coalition government with the communists and that sort of thing. So yeah, that, that added to his bitterness. Thank you. We have another question here. Was there any relationship between the US and Mao Zedong in the immediate post war period, and in the plan for preserving the peace kind of like we were talking about. Well, the, you know, on and off I mean American diplomats in Chongqing met with Joe and lie, who was there during the war. And there was what was known as the Dixie mission. There was an observer group that had been sent to the communist base camp, you know, and sort of Northwest China, and they, the people who were there had a very high opinion of the communists and what they had accomplished in the war. I think Mao hope that they might exercise some influence on the American government but a series of events in the summer of 45 I think convinced Mao that that wasn't going to happen. And that the sort of, you know, reactionaries as he described them in the Truman administration we're going to prevent the Chinese communists from achieving their goals short of, you know, going without having to go to war and the, you know, when General Marshall goes to negotiate to mediate between his two sides. The communists recognize that the Americans have their thumb on the scale in favor of Chiang Kai-shek that that even if Chiang Kai-shek sort of violates all the agreements that are reached the Americans wouldn't abandon him. And those were Marshall's instructions and he helped write them himself and so, you know, I think Mao realized at that point that the best he could hope was that the Americans wouldn't intervene, although he, both he and Chiang Kai-shek expected at some point, the Americans would intervene because they thought China was so important. That's the one thing they both agreed on, to the United States. And in that sense they were both surprised that it didn't happen. In the end. So, thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. If you would like to take a moment to talk about your book on conditional. Oh, well, yeah, thanks. The, well, I'll start with the, a lot of this sort of discussion of this idea of the strategic limits and choices the Americans made and the problems of reconversion and demobilization. When I went into in pre, the previous book I wrote that with my former mentor, Walter Waldo Heinrichs this book called Implacable Foes. And, and then the most recent one on conditional. I looked at the sort of partisan debates the ideological dispute over unconditional surrender and it and it really was a, I think it kind of spilled out into American public life as a political debate. The virtues of that book is you can lift it with one hand, as opposed to Implacable Foes, which is about 600 pages but but um, but it's kind of tightly focused on this idea of the politics of America's war aims, which I think had been neglected I mean we, it's sort of famous dictum by Klausowitz you know war is politics I think it's through other means or the continuation of politics through other means. But, you know we think of that as kind of meaning seeking political objectives but it, but it was actually a continuation of politics, because unconditional surrender I argue was a, a new deal I mean what it, it sought to do was to create a new deal for Japan. Economic and political reform rewriting the constitution all those things. You know, were indicative of a confidence in governments ability. You know to bring about positive change in a society and, you know, with good reason I mean not without good reason certainly conservatives who are mainly Republicans at that time were highly skeptical that the United States could successfully accomplish what it was setting out to do. I talk about that and I talk about the way in which the debate over unconditional surrender lingered and got caught up in a whole who lost China thing and, and I was sort of interested in the way that debate gets transformed over you know the kind of history, you know lives on really even to this day. So that's what that's what that book is about. And it, it'll make a great gift to bring home your parents at Thanksgiving. So. Thank you so much for joining us tonight and thank you everyone in the audience for coming in on a Wednesday night about wraps it up for tonight. Thank you again. Okay, oh, you're very welcome and thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed it.