Demobilization, Disintegration, and Mutiny: The U.S. Army and Washington’s China Policy, September 1945 to February 1946

This article combines a political and social history of the post–World War II demobilization of the U.S. military with a diplomatic and military history of the crisis in China in the months following the surrender of Japan. In this light, it examines the broader political consequences of the worldwide GI rebellion, showing how the rapid demobilization”—described by President Truman as a “disintegration”—constrained policymakers’ options as civil war flared in China. This remarkably understudied conjuncture, which left Washington with very limited military options at a critical moment in the consolidation of its postwar hegemony, illuminates key aspects of the ragged endings of World War II in Asia and the early development of the Cold War.