Yet whereas Churchill was fighting for an empire in which by 1945 very many senior British decision-makers besides himself no longer believed, and Stalin for an equally doomed system, before deliberately initiating a Cold War that his country was eventually to lose, Roosevelt fought for a future which actually came to pass, that of United States ‘soft’ hegemony, with military bases around the world, generally unfettered access to global markets, and a Pax Americana that has lasted to the present day. When Churchill told the V-E Day crowds in London ‘This is your victory!’ and they roared back
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