Pay your respects to George Kennan

Great Debates
1

(Mods, I’m putting this in here purely because this isn’t a question, is certainly not mundane or pointless, and seems a bit too serious for IMHO. If I’ve mis-posted, my apologies.)

George Kennan died today. If you’ve never heard of him, the Washington Post has an excellent article. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45242-2005Mar17.html). Basically, he designed the containment strategy, nearly 60 years ago, that we used to win the Cold War. He had a brillian idea, and lived to see himself proven right.

From what I’ve read, he wasn’t right on everything. He was capable of astonishing acts of arrogance, and some of his views were just plain odd. But he was one of the true giants of our time, and I’m sorry I never got the chance to meet him.

Anyone here ever meet Dr. Kennan? I think we’ve got a few Princeton dopers on the board, and that’s where he spent most of his career.

Anyone have any thoughts on Dr. Kennan’s contributions to American foreign policy? I’d love to hear them.

2

Brilliant and scholarly man, one of our greatest international-affairs strategists ever, and as the OP suggests, perhaps the one man who did the most towards winning the Cold War. Biographies of FDR and HST, and William Manchester’s history of the 1932-72 period, have capsule descriptions of what he did and why he thought that way.

I wasn’t aware he was still alive, and am sorry to see news of his death.

3

My employer got a letter from him about a year or two ago. I was thrilled to read it. I also talked to a relative of his about work-type stuff – I can’t recall if it was a son, or nephew, or grandson – around the same time. Apparently he was not well enough at that time to hold a conversation (I don’t know whether that was because of a long-term illness or if he, say, just had a sore throat that day).

What an oustanding person with a fascinating story. In his later years, he was mostly known for daving a rather strong “dovish” view on world politics, but he also had a real spine. Don’t forget that he was thrown out of the Soviet Union while serving as the US Ambassador to Moscow for drawing a parallel between living in the USSR and living in a Nazi concentration camp. Not a lot of diplomats would speak in those stark terms.

4

His NY Times obit indicated that he was married to the same woman for 74 years. And his wife survives him I believe.

I hope they got along.

Of the “Wise Men”, he probably had the most wisdom, although not the most forceful personality. That group must have had some good genes. Harriman, McCloy, Bowles, and Kennan all lived pretty long lives.

5

The OP frames no issue for debate, so I’ll provide one: Kennan came up with what proved to be a winning strategy for the Cold War – but was the Cold War worth fighting at all? In retrospect, it appears the Soviet Union was always dangerous – but never nearly as dangerous as Cold Warriors like Kennan make it out to be. Perhaps if we had simply left them alone, they never even would have tried to extend their reach west of their post-WWII occupation zones. Perhaps the USSR would still exist, but with a liberalized economy, like China’s. And we would have saved all the blood and treasure both sides poured into the Cold War for four decades. Would that be so horrible?

6

They very quickly moved to exert their influence in every country where they could, even outside their assigned occupation zones, in the period 1944-49. This was before Kennan and his colleagues came up with the containment policy, which was in reaction to it. So no, I don’t believe your hypothesis will fly.

7

The sad thing is that Kennan outlived most of the people who would appreciate his contribution, his critical contribution, to the period of American-Soviet conflict.

As things turned out his strategy to play the Soviet Union enough rope and it would hang itself was effective. It may not have been the best or the only strategy but it did avoid the out break of direct war between the two powers, substituting a series of proxy wars, and it did in time result in the containment of the Soviet Empire and its ultimate collapse from its own internal contradictions. It is easy enough to point to President Reagan’s Berlin speech and credit him with the end of the Soviet threat but the credit must go to Kennan and people like him who understood Russia, the Soviets and who had the guts to develop a plan and stick with it for forty-five years and more.

He may well have gotten a lot of stuff wrong but he did get one big thing right. All honor and credit to him for that, and to a succession of Presidents, from Truman through Reagan for following through on a consistent and thoughtful policy.

8

I’m not an expert on Kennan, and having received a castrated education on history in High School, it’ll be a while before my education catches up to where I’d like it to be in that regard.

However, as to my personal views on his death.

  1. He’s old and I didn’t know him personally
  2. I’m glad he’s dead.

The reason I am glad that he is dead is as a symbol of the cold war. It was a period during which I lived only the very tail end. I wasn’t there, and I won’t offer up anything they could have done better.

However, as a symbol of the cold war, I am glad to see him go, I am tired of the Romanticization I see of the cold war in my grandparents’ generation. I think the current conflict is being fought by a bunch of guys that were little boys idealizing their fathers’ cold warrior stance.

Now that the cold war is over, I am glad to see it end. I do not wish to see another started between America and Iran like we seem to be doing. That policy has had it’s day, and it is time to put it to rest along with the men that helped found the policy. As the cold war heroes die, we can put the cold war to rest more easily, and that is a good thing in my opinion.

From what little I have read about the Cold War, it mostly seems like a consistent lack of judgement upon the part of administrators of both powers. I see a story of two sides reacting out of extreme fear of the other. I do not see America as a great white shining beacon, and I think the cold war was a gigantic black mark upon a really noble and wonderful idea that this country was founded upon. We consistently twisted the definition of democracy as we invaded other nations, not trying to remake them in our own image, but riding roughshod over them while pursuing our own economic interests.

In short, we destroyed democracy out of fear of communism.

I don’t think that George Kennan is worthy of praise or accolades. He is worthy of respect, as I would give to any powerful or influential man, but I am glad he’s dead.

Erek

9

Who says we can’t do both? :slight_smile:

10

We can, as long as that image has nothing to do with Democracy.

Erek

11

However, Kennan opposed direct military intervention to combat the Soviet Union, preferring covert action. Kennan was opposed to the U.S. military intervention in Vietnam.

If you think that Kennan was the primary inspiration for the war on Iraq, that’s a rather tortured bit of logic.

I doubt that Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, or John Bolton are big fans of the writings of George Kennan.

12

And how many nations did we invade during the Cold War?

13

Quite a few, if you define “invasion” broadly enough to encompass “police actions,” “military interventions,” “punitive strikes,” “covert operations,” “proxy wars,” and “counterinsurgencies.” From “American Military Interventions of the 20th Century,” in Rogue Nation, by William Blum, http://www.sumeria.net/politics/usa.html:

Some of these actions, such as the invasion of Panama, arguably were taken for purposes not directly connected to the Cold War; but all occurred during that period. At that, the list is not quite comprehensive:

14

Enjoyed his writing, studied it in school and everything. A long life well lived.

15

And if “invasion” means “invasion?” For example, I find it hard to believe that we “invaded” Korea. Nor do I believe that CIA actions in Iran in 1953 constitute an invasion, no more than trying to create havok in the Soviet Union from about 1947 on constituted an invasion.

16

I don’t think that he was the primary inspiration for the war in Iraq, I just think that the fewer Cold Warrior Icons we have the better we can put the cold war behind us.

I watched George Kennan speak on the news, and I liked him. I take my judgement of the man based upon my own personal impression of him more than anything else, and I don’t necessarily find him to be a distasteful guy. However, I do feel it was his time to go, and I’m glad he’s gone. I don’t share a lot of this nostalgia when celebrities die that a lot of other people do. People die, it’s a regular occurence, and I don’t think it’s such a bad thing, nor does it usually make me sad, even if I liked the person.

So pardon me if I feel a little bit of joy as I start to feel the spring thaw on the cold war.

Erek

17

We had troops on the ground, on territory they had to fight to gain control of. Exact same situation as the Allied invasion of Normandy. I never said “invasions” were never justified, only that we shouldn’t pretend we fought the Cold War without using them.

Whatever it was, it was some bad, evil shit. We overthrew a democratically elected national leader and replaced him with a brutal dictator who was friendlier to our national interests. It was indefensible, and the Iranians still remember it even if we don’t.

What are you talking about? Was there a single CIA or other U.S. government operation during the Cold War that sought to “create havok” inside the USSR? If so, none ever succeeded.

18

Well, now we’re down to the level of quibbling. I say invasion means what dictionary.com says it means (“esp. the entrance of armed forces into a territory to conquer”), and I think your definition is so broad as to call any use of force whatsoever “an invasion.”

For one, the CIA allegedly blew up a large part of a trans-Siberian oil pipeline.

19

Jeez, by that definition D-Day wasn’t an “invasion” either – but that’s the term the historians all use. To them it’s defined by tactics, not by goals – if you send troops into territory an enemy is holding, for the purpose of dislodging the enemy and gaining military control of that territory even temporarily, then it’s an “invasion,” regardless of whether the ultimate aim is “conquest,” “liberation,” or whatever else.

20

If you’re willing to submit to how historians use these terms:

Ahem. Speaking as someone who has completed graduate studies in Cold War history, your use of the term “invasion” to refer to raids and covert operations is overly broad and inaccurate.