Was the Cold War inevitable, and who is responsible for its outbreak? This chapter argues that, as the Second World War neared its end, Joseph Stalin was shopping for a great bargain with the Allies, in keeping with Russia's realpolitik tradition. While the details of Stalin's vision remain blurry, evidence from internal Soviet deliberations in 1944–45 points to a broadly imperial, nineteenth-century, conceptualization of the Soviet role in Europe. Stalin sought both power and legitimacy, and understood that the Americans could endorse or reject his postwar claims. He could and did measure his appetites in pursuit of legitimate gains—those that had Washington’s imprimatur. Despite his efforts to achieve legitimacy at Yalta, Stalin’s hopes for a Soviet–American agreement to divide the world soon began to run aground, largely owing to his own rapacity and bad faith.

The Barack Obama administration insisted many of America’s problems with other nations were the fault of the Bush administration. This was true in the case of Iraq, but such thinking ignores the aims and interests of other states and the ideologies driving them. The administration launched a failed “reset” of relations with Russia, a war for regime change against Libya that repeated many Bush mistakes, endured the Syrian “red line” chemical weapons use debacle, and mounted a troop “surge” in Afghanistan while withdrawing from Iraq too early, feeding the environment that created Islamic State. Obama’s administration subverted democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and launched the Third Iraq War against Islamic State while acknowledging it would be passed to the next administration. It signed the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran in order to delay Iran’s development of nuclear weapons until Obama left office. John Kerry admitted publicly that this deal would allow Iran to fund terrorist actions abroad.

This chapter depicts France on the eve of Liberation as various factions jockeyed for legitimacy and rightful claim to lead France once Paris was free again. It reveals a debate within US government circles about the accuracy of the entrenched image of France at the onset of the Cold War as decadent and teetering toward revolution. In exchanges with the White House, State Department and military intelligence, right-leaning French sources, including familiar military, intelligence, political and industrial figures, bolstered this view. French contacts in the Resistance meanwhile shaped Office of Strategic Services analysis that France was a strong, worthy ally. Thus France became a contested idea with warring factions in both capitals, as well as the far reaches of the French empire, seeking to influence US policy.

The chapter examines Churchill’s role on the international stage and his summit diplomacy with Roosevelt and Stalin. Faced with the surprise collapse of France in 1940, he was forced to seek new partners, assiduously courting the United States while seizing the opportunity of an alliance with the Soviet Union. The result was that he had to juggle the conflicting demands of Roosevelt and Stalin, embarking on strenuous personal diplomacy in the face of declining British influence. The chapter reviews the key decisions of the major meetings before looking at their postwar legacy in Churchill’s attempts to advance European reconciliation and his ultimately unsuccessful bid to resume summitry with the Soviet Union.

Chapter 4 traces the origins of the global environmental movement in the nineteenth century. It discusses the emergence of transnational environmental networks and the first international NGOs. It examines the first international efforts at environmental protection, mainly for managing shared resources and colonial conservation projects. It then traces the first failed attempts to establish an international environmental agenda, from the 1913 Berne Conference to the League of Nations.