Southeast Asia after the Japanese Surrender, 1945–1946

Abstract

The Third Force concept The war in Europe had terminated on 8 May 1945 and the Allies were now free to devote their attention to their second priority, the war in Asia. As a result of Enigma, the war in Europe had been terminated earlier than might have been expected, and indeed it had been terminated more completely, since in an extended war Germany might have developed more potent weapons. It still required a major invasion of the Continent by the Western allies and an invasion of Germany and the Balkans by the Soviet Union. The war against Japan, fought in the event more from the Pacific than from China and the mainland than had been anticipated, was terminated without an invasion of Japan itself. Instead victory was brought by the new weapons which the Allies had developed. The Japanese capitulated after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the following months the focus of the Allies was still largely upon Europe. The aims of the Soviet Union were hard to determine. Was it providing for its security? Was it aiming at revolution elsewhere in Europe? Was it on the way to world revolution? Its focus, at least for the present, was certainly on Europe, like that of the other victors. But those who shared victory did not share a vision of the future. If, however, Russia's policy was unclear, so, too, was that of the US. That meant that Britain's policy, too, had to be cautious. Bevin thus ‘proposed to defer any active steps towards the conclusion of a “Western Group” until he had had more time to consider possible Russian reactions’.