Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953

Roberts describes Stalin's policies on the eve of the Korean War as "reactive and restrained," (p. 364) but this is hard to reconcile with the fact that Stalin's approval and aid for North Korea's invasion of the south took a fateful step in transforming the Cold War's economic and political confrontation into a military one, converting the previously moribund NSC-68, calling for a massive expansion of American military spending, from paper project into reality. After showing that Stalin feared the escalation of the Cold War might "result in an even greater danger: the revival of German militarism and its combination with an American-led bloc," (p. 347), Roberts concedes that "the Berlin blockade backfired on Stalin," (p. 355) producing the creation of NATO, the eventual rearmament of West Germany, and the manifestation of Stalin's greatest fears (p. 26).