George F. Kennan’s article entitled, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” he provided a brief history that explains why the Soviet Union conducted foreign policy with secretiveness, suspicion and general unfriendliness and he suggested how the United States and other capitalist societies should deal with them.
Why Russia was the way it was:
1. They believed strongly in the political and moral superiority of communism.
2. They believed capitalism exploited the working class and would eventually lead to its own destruction or revolution and war.
3. The dictatorship in place was necessary to rid the Soviet Union of the last lingering seeds of capitalism.
4. However once capitalism was completely abolished from the Soviet regime
5. As the last
Characterized by the ideological divergence of Communism and Capitalism as well as the intense economic rivalry when World War II came to an end, the political tension between the only two world’s superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, was inevitable. While both of these two nations were motivated by the ambition to expand their worldwide influence, Soviet Union carries more responsibility for instigating the Cold War and exacerbating its discord with United States. While critics argued that America initiated the war by carrying out the Marshall plan when there was no solid evidence about the threat of Communism posed on the United States, it is unassailable that Soviet’s aggression and expansionism prior to the Cold War led to America’s mindset about the nature and potential danger of Communism. The Telegram from Moscow clarified the
Source C focuses on the American relationship with the Soviet Union and their indefinite competition to be better than the other, giving information about the commencement of the arms race between the two countries and their discreet battle over which country had the better security and defense system. This source contains information that is critical to one’s understanding of the American policies that were legislated at the given time period.
Whatever conclusions may be drawn from these facts -- and facts they are - this is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up” (Document C). This quote set the precedent for containment and gives understanding as to why America reverted from its original policy of isolationism into an alternate strategy of preventing the spread of communist expansion. Moreover, George E. Kennan’s Long Telegram, or Document D, sketched “the roots of Soviet policy” and contained “warning of serious difficulties with the Soviet Union in the years ahead”. Kennan’s telegram portrayed the Soviets as aggressive and intent on world domination, suggesting that they would only respond to force and not
George F. Kennan was an ambassador to the Soviet Union and sent an eight-thousand-word telegram to President Truman explaining the intentions of the Russians. This telegram was called the “Long Telegram”. He felt like he was isolated from the Washington while in Moscow. His intuition told him that things were bad under Stalin’s leadership and hated Germany because of it. “I HATE THE GERMANS”. HE did not think that the united states had what it took to get take care of things once and for all.
1)During the Cold War, Europe was divided and faced three consequences (results). One consequence that occurred in Europe was that the US helped create NATO which composed the western allies. The second consequence is that the Soviet Union signed the Warsaw Pact with allies from Eastern Europe. Finally, the third consequence is that a line was formed between the west and north. This line was called the Iron Curtain.
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
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,
In The Sources of Soviet Conduct, George F. Kennan explained “Containment was the central post-war concept of the United States and its allies in dealing with the Soviet Union”. To contain communism, the United Stated strategy was to have a strong
This caused the US to believe that Soviets had mainly expansionist aims. The US was “not prepared to see the opportunity for future investment [in Eastern Europe] foreclosed” (Crockatt 67) and this belief sparked the development of the containment policy directed by George Kennan, outlined in the Long Telegram (Lightbody 5). In addition, “the west had to oppose the Soviet Union for its own survival” (Lightbody 5) as the nuclear race between the US and USSR ensued and the USSR strived to equal the already well-established program of the US. This tension did not recede as Soviets sent spies into the US Manhattan Project, the nuclear development program (Lightbody 5). When the Soviets refused to join the Baruch Plan – which controlled nuclear weapon development – the USSR became even more openly viewed as a threat to US security. The growth of communism in Asia within the countries of Korea, Vietnam, and China along with tensions between the “Iron Curtain,” or divide, between Eastern and Western Europe also contributed to increasing threat towards capitalism and the Cold War’s inevitability.
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.
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.
Firstly, background to the rise of the Soviet Union is examined. Keenan states that the Communists rose to power on ideas which denounced capitalism and
The most powerful entities of Russia (one of the main Soviet Union creators) took control when they began to spread the motto "all power to the soviets." It is at this time that the monarchy of Tsar Nicholas II was threatened and finally destroyed in 1917. From this year, began the establishment of a social state and free of exploiters was consolidated until more than a dozen countries were they joined him.