著者

秦 郁彦

出版者

JAPAN ASSOCIATION OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

雑誌

国際政治 (ISSN:04542215)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1982, no.70, pp.47-66,L5, 1982-05-22 (Released:2010-09-01)

参考文献数

63

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While the United Nations were devoting their last efforts towards the defeat of the Axis Powers, strategists within the U. S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had started to prepare for the “next war.” The USSR appeared as the most probable enemy in the war plans from the fall of 1945. Rapid demobilization and resulting reorganization of American armed forces, however, curtailed effective deterrence toward the USSR which maintained relatively superior forces along the “Iron Curtain.”Official declaration of the Cold War by President Truman in 1947 accelerated the rapid strengthening of the U. S. armed forces and a number of emergency war plans, short and long term, were drafted.In this article, the author has endeavoured to trace the evolution of the American strategy toward the USSR between 1945 and 1949, based chiefly on the JCS Official History. Special attention has been paid to the changing role of nuclear weapons within the overall strategy.The Far East was always given low priority by war planners and it led to the retreat of the U. S. defense perimeter in Asia since the “loss of China” in the fall of 1949. Japan under the occupation was, however, enjoying calm and peaceful days.