George F. Kennan Served As An American Diplomat Essay

‘For Marshall Planners, it (economic growth) was...the key to social harmony, to the survival of private-enterprise capitalism, and to the preservation of political democracy’ , additionally, by setting up European economies in the image of America’s capitalist, free-market economy, it became far more difficult for Communist beliefs in the state controlled market to prevail in the struggle for power that consumed many European countries. An analysis of America’s foreign policy by Nikolai Novikov, Soviet Ambassador, shows that the Soviet Union also saw the Marshall Plan as an attempt to impose America’s political views on the peoples of Europe ‘obvious indications of the US effort to establish world dominance’ . Novikov suggests that America is trying to become the leading world power ‘The foreign policy of the United States... is characterised in the post-war period by a striving for world supremacy’ , and emphasises the role of the American military to impose the policies of the White House on the world, ‘indications of the US effort to establish world dominance are also to be found in the increase in military potential in peacetime’ . This view is expressed by Soviet deputy foreign minister Andrei Vyshinsky where he states to the UN General Assembly that the Marshall Plan is an American attempt to ‘impose its will on other independent states’ . There was a strong feeling in the Soviet Union

Washington D.C. in the summertime is constantly perspiring, a rather miserable place to be. And, although the summer of 1949 was equally as dredged, Paul Nitze, an expert economist who lacked status in the United States government, was about to receive the opportunity of a lifetime. George Kennan, longtime diplomat and Russian studies expert, was looking to retire to his quiet farm in Pennsylvania, but he needed to leave a successor for the Policy Planning Staff. He decided on Paul Nitze. However, just months later after Russia succeeded in building and testing an atomic bomb and Nitze’s appeal for an assessment of U.S. Foreign Policy, Kennan on September 30 wrote, “I face the work of these remaining months with neither enthusiasm nor hope for achievement.” Obviously, the Cold War would be a large undertaking for any Russian expert in the State Department, however, it is more than likely that he was referring to working closely with colleague whose foreign policy tactics evidently began to differ greatly from his own as time would show.

Tucker strengthens the argument that the USSR was not the only major power driven by ideology. He states “Constantly seeking to extend the orbit of American hegemony, the US had been the most expansionist of all great powers impelled by the inner drives of American capitalism” [7] . Tuckers view is correct and is supported by the Novikov telegram, the Soviet version of Kennan’s long telegram – both depicted the other side as driven by an instiable urge for world domination… Novikov worried about America’s global reach, and described the USA as trying to reduce Soviet influence in neighbouring countries in order to hamper the progress of communism there and to create conditions for the penetration of American capital into their economies. ADD EXTRA

“The Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” -X. The Cold War was after World War II. The United States and the Soviet Union were the world's strongest nations. They were called superpowers. They had different ideas about economics and government. The United States was capitalist and the Soviet Union was communist. Joseph Stalin wanted to expand the Soviet empire and spread communism throughout the rest of the world. The United States would not allow the Soviet Union and communism to spread, the American policy was now containment. Three times the United States demonstrated the policy of containment was the airlift in Berlin, the War in Korea, the missile blockade in Cuba.

George Kennan's containment plan is a radical shift in the U.S foreign policy when the Policy of the United States towards the Soviet Union prior, and during the World War II is considered. The containment policy marks the shift of American foreign policy towards the Soviets from alliance to deterrence. Kennan's states in the Long Telegram, "USSR still lives in antagonistic "capitalist encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence." (Citation needed) only two years after the end of World War II, a war both the U.S and the Soviet Union fought side by side for a common ambition. If the aspect of radical shift in the U.S foreign policy is seen from a post-Cold War perspective, another radical change can

When one can truly understand and uncover the meaning behind these articles and how they fit into one or more of the ‘boxes’ we call paradigms and perspectives. In order to dissect and analyze the case of the Cold War, especially its origins, one must not only skim through the text and uncover main ideas, but also must also relate the readings to these paradigms and establish one’s own ideals and opinions regarding the study of international relations. Personally, I believe the articles associated with the origins of the Cold War along with Professor Katzenstein’s lecture on the topic provide strong arguments for the use of a ‘middle fish’ perspective and a ‘big fish’ paradigm: domestic politics and realism, respectively. Through George Kennan’s personal accounts, experience and analysis at both the time of the Cold War’s inception and forty-plus years later after the fall of the Soviet Union, a point is made regarding the nature of Soviet expansion as an offensive maneuver, which he believed must be contained by a defensive strategy. This point of conflicting strategies by the U.S. and (especially) the Soviet Union provides the reader with a realist argument and perspective. Also, in his second piece, which details remarks made to the Council on Foreign Relations in 1994, Kennan explains that instead of whole-heartedly adopting

The Sources of Soviet Conduct, a highly influential article written by George Keenan in 1946, states that the US must pursue afirm and consistent opposition to the Soviet Union. In Keenan's argument for this, he explores the two factors of ideology and circumstance which shaped the Soviet Union. This is used in order to explain the behaviour of the Soviet Union. Thus, the most effective method for the US to counteract this behaviour is then explained.

The United States and Communist Russia endured a complicated relationship in the first half of the 20th century. In the early 1940’s the U.S. had encouraged an alliance with the Soviets against their common enemy, Nazi Germany. This short-lived accord began to deteriorate as WW II ended. By 1947 U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union had shifted from one of cooperation to a policy of containment. In 1949, when the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb, it was a widely-held belief in the U.S. that the Russians were an untrustworthy enemy with plans to invade the United States. America’s mood turned on American Communists, labeling them traitors and Russian spies. Underlying a domestic sense of well-being in the United States in the 1950’s

This essay will focus on the Reagan Administration which spanned from January 1981 to January 1989. When Reagan became President, he had only one clear, defined foreign policy goal – containment of the Soviet Union, or the “evil empire” as he referred to it. He primarily wanted to stop the USSR from growing larger and to keep other non-Communist countries from becoming Communist. In the past, American presidents had used a theory called the “Domino Theory” to justify the need for intervention around

In document 1, George Kennan arguments are that the USRR sees capitalism as an enemy, therefore, it cannot coexist with the rest of the world. He states that the Soviets want to dominate the world. as a result, he proposed a policy of containment where the United States and its allies should find ways to reduce the spread of communism around the world.

The question of, “Was America’s actions during the Cold War containment or hegemony?” cannot be easily answered with a single source or perspective. While some attempt to justify the United States’ actions during the Cold War as necessary to preserving freedom and the American way of life through the containment of the Soviet threat, there are just as many critics on the other side of the debate that have argued that, America used the Cold War as a veil under which it expanded it’s influence and power throughout the world. My intent is to show how some believe that America’s Cold War policies were completely justified and how others see America’s actions as nothing more than American imperialism.

George Kennan did not make any detailed policy recommendations in the Long Telegram of 1946, although he made it clear that he did not regard the Soviet Union as the same type of threat as Nazi Germany. He opposed the ideas of National Security Council Memorandum 68 (1950) as a hysterical overreaction, and thought that global containment was a serious strategic error, especially in peripheral regions like Indochina. Unlike Hitler, Stalin's aggression and expansion were unplanned and opportunistic, and its leaders did not wish to risk a general war with the West. For this reasons, the Soviets were highly sensitive to the "logic of force" and would retreat if confronted with resolution (Kennan 1946). Internally, it was a police state ruled by a Communist Party oligarchy and bureaucracy, but one that was always insecure in its power. Although Marxism had no real emotional appeal to the masses, the elites were guided by the assumption that the imperialist powers were always attempting to encircle the Soviet Union and that the contradictions within capitalism would always lead to wars. They would attempt to exploit these differences within the capitalist nations, while at the same time attempting to weaken their hold on the colonial areas. Kennan was well aware that the main problem in Western Europe was war-weariness and economic insecurity, and the U.S. would have to take the lead in reviving these countries or the "Russians certainly will" (Kennan 1946). In this case, though,

Soviet leaders probably did not enjoy reading George Kennan’s famous “Long Telegram,” abbreviated LT for short. A 1946 State Department cable sent from the American embassy in Moscow to Washington, D.C., the LT provided the intellectual foundations for the U.S. policy of containment. Although containment did not necessarily advise officials to eradicate communism’s existing footholds, the policy did make the Cold War “hot” in many countries in an attempt to stop communism’s spread – Vietnam (1965 – 1973), Korea (1950 – 1953), and Greece (1946 – 1949), to name a few. Somewhat less importantly from a policy standpoint (but arguably more so for the individual kingpins within Russia), the LT attacked the USSR’s leaders on a personal level, calling

The traditional, orthodox interpretation places the responsibility of the Cold War on Stalin’s personality and on communist ideology. It claims that as long as Stalin and the authoritarian government were in power, a cold war was unavoidable. It argues that Stalin violated agreements that he had made at Yalta, imposed Soviet policy on Eastern European countries aiming at political domination and conspired to advocate communism throughout the world. As a result, United States officials were forced to respond to Soviet aggression with foreign policies such as the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. Yet revisionists argue that there was “no proof of Stalin promoting communism outside Russia” and that Stalin’s decisions were first and foremost, pro-Soviet and not of communist intentions. Up until 1947, it is evident through Marshall Plan as well as statements and interviews made by Stalin that he was still thinking of cooperation with the United States, Britain and France. Despite post-war conflicts and instability of Soviet-American relations, the USSR’s initial embrace of the Marshall Plan at its announcement expressed

“The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in 1947 by George F. Kennan, the article impacted and created a different perspective on the spread of Communism and the Soviet Union. Kennan’s philosophy behind stopping Communism from spreading was through containment, even though the telegraph did not have the word containment in it. The Truman Doctrine was established and the number of Presidents that viewed war in foreign soil. Kennan continued to fight Communism and had inputs and theories on other conflicts to include Vietnam and Korea.