George Kennan 1904-2005

The American diplomat George Kennan passed away on Thursday night, at the ripe old age of 101.

George Kennan was famous for being the principle intellectual architect of the US policy of ‘containment’, as applied to the USSR. As a diplomat who served in the USSR, he composed what is known as the ‘Long Telegram’, which had a considerable impact on the thinking of US policymakers, which became even greater when it was expanded into a longer essay, ‘The sources of Soviet conduct’.

Kennan’s view was that Soviet expansionist tendencies were internally driven, and based on the fundamental illegitimate nature of Soviet power:

At bottom of Kremlin’s neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted Russian rulers rather than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form, fragile and artificial in its psychological foundations, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it.

Kennan’s view was that US policy should be to meet the Soviet challenge with firmness, patience and intelligent policymaking. In the ‘Long Telegram’, he compares the relationship between the US and the USSR as that of a doctor and a disturbed patient.

What is curious though is that Kennan thought this would be solely a political and diplomatic effort. He deplored the US military buildup in the Cold War. It strikes me as curious that a diplomat that lived through the rise and fall of Nazi Germany would under-rate the importance of military preparedness in dealing with militant totalitarian dictatorships.

But then Kennan had many curious views.

It is odd that a man who had a profound impact on the policy direction of the US in the Twentieth century should be so out of sympathy with the prevailing spirits of the age; the great advocate of Bismarckian ‘realpolitik’ had indeed, a world view closer to Bismarck then any figure in his own age. As Daniel Drezner noted:

Kennan never gave a flying fig about the developing world, believing that it never would develop. Kennan’s narrow world vision consisted only of the five centers of industrial activity — the US, USSR, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan. By the early nineties, when he wrote Around the Cragged Hill, he clearly believed the U.S. to be doomed to decline and devoid of “intelligent and discriminating administration.” And the less said about Kennan’s view of non-WASPs, the better.

His archaic philosophy of life explains why he never went on to bigger and better things; JY Smith, writing the Washington Post obituary pointed out:

Believing as he did in a limitless human capacity for error, Mr. Kennan was an unabashed elitist who distrusted democratic processes. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas reported in their book “The Wise Men” that he suggested in an unpublished work that women, blacks and immigrants be disenfranchised. He deplored the automobile, computers, commercialism, environmental degradation and other manifestations of modern life. He loathed popular American culture. In his memoirs, he described himself as a “guest of one’s time and not a member of its household.”

He not only deplored such modern gadgets as cars and computers, and equal rights for all, he deplored nuclear weapons; he pushed his opposition to the point where he was considered unemployable in the State Department, and retired to that haven of the impractical man, academia.

There, he forged a productive career, writing books, articles and winning prizes; his views remained archaic and unworkable, which is a pity. He made a great contribution to American public life during his short spell of real influence; looking back, one can only consider that if he had only been more willing to re-examine his views, he might have made a far greater contribution then he actually did.

See also David Adesnik, and a collection of his Foreign Policy contributions can be viewed here