The USA, Britain, and France's policy in the Balkans as indirect confrontation with Stalin's USSR

What is it about?

When Stalin broke with Tito's all too independent Communist leadership of Yugoslavia, the USA, Britain and France decided to help Tito against subversion and planned aggression from neighbouring Hungary and Bulgaria. At the same time, they persuaded him to stop supporting the Greek Communists, spelling out the end of the Greek Civil War. Trusted to defend itself at all costs against Soviet-cum Satellite-aggression, Yugoslavia became a crucial pillar for WEU and NATO defence.

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Why is it important?

In the context of Western defence planning for Yugoslavia against Soviet-cum-Satellite invasion, the US first experimented with nuclear deterrence - one idea was to bomb Satellite cities to stop such aggression. This was a forerunner to "massive retaliation" threats to use nuclear weapons against Chinese big cities to stop Chinese support for North Korea in the Korean War. Meanwhile, the CIA was trying to overthrow Tito, in a precursor of the Bay of Pigs invasion...