George Kennan

George Kennan died last week at the age of 101. He may well have been one of the most important thinkers of the Twentieth Century.

Kennan is best known for having written the article that proposed the development of a "containment" policy for dealing with the Soviet Union following World War II. The great revelation offered by Kennan was that the challenge posed by the Soviet Union was primarily an economic and ideological one, not a military one. Kennan offered the assessment that the Soviet Union's military strength was vastly overstated, and that the fundamental political and economic assumptions on which its society was built were flawed. Kennan proposed that if the U.S. forged strong alliances with other Democratic countries including the new German and Japanese democracies, used minimal military force to prevent substantial territorial expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence beyond that existing at the conclusion of World War II, and presented itself and other democratic nations as models of what a liberal Democratic society could be, the Soviet Union would collapse of its own weight and would thereafter seek to join the international community on a more cooperative basis. That, of course, is precisely what happened.

Kennan presented these insights in the historical context of an America in the grips of hysterical McCarthyism. Right-wingers sought to portray an apocalyptic vision of a Soviet Union that was the earthly manifestation of pure evil, an entity that could be defeated only by bringing the world to the brink of nuclear holocaust, and even, as Dr. Strangelove and other cultural relics of the Cold War teach us, over that brink. Kennan offered a contrary vision of the conflict with the Soviet Union that was sane, but strong. Kennan had no illusions about the dangers that the Soviet Union presented and the genuine evil that existed in the form of its totalitarian political system. However, Kennan also had the courage to proclaim its military strength to have been exaggerated, and to present a vision based on the confidence that if we acted firmly yet patiently, a superior political and economic system would ultimately come into being.

Kennan's death ought to cause a re-assessment of something that is unfortunately becoming historical common wisdom, namely, the notion that it was Ronald Reagan who "won" the Cold War. In fact, Reagan and his ilk were responsible for prolonging the Cold War. Right-wingers were too willing to abandon the principles of liberal democracy by embracing anti-Communist tyrants throughout the world, notably in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Indonesia, Africa, and the Middle East. As a result, Kennan's vision of a Democratic America acting as a model in opposition to Soviet totalitarianism was often viewed throughout the poorer countries of the world as a sham, a front for local oppression and economic exploitation. These right-wing policies of embracing anti-Communist dictators resulted in successful Communist-led movements in Vietnam and Cuba, as well as unsuccessful revolutions in Chile, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Iran, the Congo, and Indonesia that were defeated through brutal American military intervention.

In addition, as Kennan often pointed out, right-wingers persistently overstated the military strength of the Soviet Union in order to justify massive American military spending on weapons boondoggles that were completely unnecessary -- Reagan's "Star Wars" being the culmination of such folly. Such military programs were, however, highly provocative and played right into the hands of Soviet hard-liners who blocked any attempt at reform from the time of the ouster of Khruschev until they were finally defeated after the unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in 1991. These Soviet hardliners forced through programs that caused the Soviet Union to devote an inordinately high percentage of its GNP to military expenditures. Of course, such a program was not economically sustainable, as shown by the rapid collapse of the Soviet Union once Gorbachev actually began to implement a reform agenda. Had Kennan's vision been followed more faithfully, without the influence of Reagan and his ilk, a Gorbachev probably would have been able to reform the Soviet system at a least a decade earlier.

George Kennan's death reminds us that we need a new global vision for America's role in the world today. In particular, the Democrats desperately need the vision of a new George Kennan and a Secretary of State in the mold of Dean Acheson with the courage to implement that vision in order to take command of America's foreign policy. Kennan reminds us that America can never lapse into knee-jerk isolationism and pacifism. There is a dangerous world out there, and we cannot act in ignorance of the very real dangers presented today by terrorism and religious fanaticism. But we cannot act solely through blind reliance on military power. Nor can we act alone; as Kennan recognized, we must never stop trying to strengthen the ties of the liberal democracies of the world. We must never forget that the true strength of America's role in the world is never any greater than the strength of our liberal democracy at home. If the Democrats don't come forward with that great vision -- the vision that George Kennan gave to a previous generation of Democrats -- we will leave it by default to Bush and the neo-cons to define America's role in the world.