In the event, Stalin’s gains were mixed. The reaction of the Western allies in Europe – the key geopolitical centre between East and West – was to consolidate the newly established NATO with an integrated command structure. Moreover, the American intervention led to a huge re-armament programme enabling the United States to be engaged militarily in Asia without reducing its deployments in Europe. Japan became even more tightly locked into the American alliance network. China, however, became more estranged from the United States and, in Stalin’s terms, more trustworthy. But china had also proved itself in war to be a great power in its own right, and it was a China whose leaders had acquired new grievances against the Soviet Union. Right to the end Soviet interests were put ahead of those of China, even in Korea, where the terms for issue of Taiwan nor China’s entry into the UN. It has been suggested that in his last year Stalin began to soften his confrontationist approach in Europe and to recognize that the newly independent post – colonial states were a new factor in world politics. His death in March 1953 left the issue to be explored by his successors.