If the West faced “even worse perils” in 1948 than in 1939, what had it all been for? Yes, Hitler was dead and Nazism exterminated, but at a cost of 50 million lives. And Britain had lost four hundred thousand men, and was broken and bankrupt. The empire had lost scores of thousands more dead and was collapsing. India, the crown jewel, was already gone. Stalin’s Red Army loomed over Europe. Stalinist parties were grasping for power in Italy and France. Mao’s armies were moving from victory to victory in China. And the Americans had gone home.
