Since the publication in 1947 of his famed “Mr. X” article on containment of the Soviet Union, George Kennan has been a central -- if somewhat enigmatic -- figure in the debate over America’s conduct of international affairs. His writings and speeches over the past three decades have raised a number of critical questions on both sides of the Atlantic: Is the West still capable of providing the rest of the world with any kind of moral or ideological leadership? Is the strategic defense doctrine of the United States built on illusion or reality? What is the true nature of the conflict between East and West?
The twelve essays in this volume focus on these and other issues as seen through the eyes of the new George Kennan -- the man who has changed from an apostle of containment into a critic of Western decadence, an apologist for Soviet behavior, and a self-styled isolationist. Many of Kennan’s most able critics represented in Decline of the West?, and their essays offer vital perspectives on the “long twilight struggle” in which the West is engaged. The following excerpts from Kennan and his critics introduce the central debate.
Ernest W. Lefever, from the Foreword: The present collection is a further effort to stimulate reflection and debate on America’s role in the never-ending struggle for security with freedom. We do this by presenting and analyzing the evolving views of a distinguished diplomatist and scholar, George F. Kennan. Through four decades of service to this country and through his incisive writing, Mr. Kennan has become a major figure in foreign policy and academic circles. During the past year his utterances have become the center of a swirling controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.
Martin F. Herz, from the Introduction: This modest collection seeks to assess to what extent Kennan's current thinking represents a coherent whole, which can be compared with his thinking of thirty years ago. We believe—or at least hope—that the clash of ideas will generate light.... We believe the reader will be able to grasp the essence of Kennan's current views from the excerpts printed here. We also believe we are giving adequate space to his intellectual adversaries to set forth what they believe to be today's dictates of national security in dealing with Communist states, which have become more numerous and varied since Kennan first wrote about Communism, but which still, in the view of the critics, show tendencies of wishing to "encroach upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world."
PART I
George F. Kennan: [Soviet] leaders ... are not inclined towards major innovations of policy, particularly not risky or adventuresome ones ... [and] their whole motivation in external relations is basically defensive.... Poor old West: succumbing feebly, day by day, to its own decadence, sliding into debility on the slime of its own self-indulgent permissiveness... and then trembling before the menace of the wicked Russians, all pictured as supermen, eight feet tall, their internal problems all essentially solved, and with nothing to think about except how to bring damage and destruction to Western Europe.
George Urban: You [Kennan] have now put forward two powerful reasons for thinking that our concern to save Western civilization from any real or imaginary Soviet threat is misplaced and indeed erroneous. One is the decadence of the West ... and the inability of the United States to offer anything worth learning to the rest of the world. Your second reasoning claims that our entire preoccupation with the danger of Soviet expansionism rests on a false conception of priorities.... It does seem to me that the West cannot win in terms of either of your scenarios. Moreover, I would infer from the moral thrust of your reasoning that your tacit message is not only that the West cannot win, but that it doesn’t deserve to win.
Hugh Seton-Watson: I do not believe that the dangers of pollution, crime, drugs, and moral decadence ... are more urgent or more menacing than the danger of Soviet imperialism.... It remains their purpose to impose their antiquated form of tyranny on every new victim which comes within their reach. Whether armed force has to be used, or whether submission can be obtained by threats and subversion, is for them a matter not of principle but of expediency.
George F. Kennan: Prior to the late 1940s ... the difficulty seemed to come primarily from the left: from people who had a naïve, overtrusting, overidealistic view of what was then Stalinist power.... But since Stalin’s death, the opposition to an evenhanded and realistic policy toward Russia has tended to come from the opposite end of the political spectrum.... I would propose that we lay aside completely ... the whole question of the military relationship ... and that we elevate our vision, at least for the time being, to the question of the real nature and situation of the particular foreign power we are dealing with.
Richard Pipes: [Soviet] power remains absolute.... How does [Kennan] reconcile his perception of the Soviet leadership as rational with the indisputable fact that it pays enormous attention to and expends vast sums of money on matters which he considers irrational and even irrelevant?... A debate between two parties, one of which regards the military relationship as crucial to the understanding of the “real nature and situation” of the Soviet Union, cannot begin by placing this topic out of bounds.
Michael Novak: Mr. Kennan finds a discussion of the actual weapons systems financed by Soviet leaders beyond his comprehension; it makes him, he admits, dizzy.... But the Soviets are building this, and that, and the other; and each system they build has a precise operational range and function. Perhaps Mr. Kennan cannot square what the Soviets are actually doing with his own benign interpretation of their psychology.
PART II
George F. Kennan: The people who profess to see some sort of a military showdown as inevitable, allegedly because the Soviet leaders are determined to have it, seem themselves to be only too ready to accept that same thesis for themselves.... These apprehensions of a Russian quest for “world domination,” which have been used to justify appeals for a totally negative, hostile, and militaristic attitude towards the Soviet Union, have little substance behind them and are not responsive to the real profile of the problem which the existence of Communist power in Russia presents for American statesmanship.
Edward N. Luttwak: The strategic goals of foreign policy are not to be decided by exercises in definition; they are defined for us by the very nature of our country, and by the circumstances of world politics.... If the necessity of an immediate circle of allies is recognized, as it is in Mr. Kennan’s minimalist formula,... the maintenance of a global balance of power will certainly require a further and wider sphere of secondary involvement. This is not a desirable chain of necessities for America, since the pursuits of power are inherently sterile. But it is the clear lesson of the century that any attempt to evade our strategic predicament unfailingly entails a heavy price in blood and treasure. That is why we must reject Mr. Kennan’s counsel of evasion.
Eugene V. Rostow: The effort to isolate the essence of Kennan’s thought... results in a series of unresolved contradictions. If one considers his arguments as a dialectic exercise, they contain theses and antitheses, but no syntheses.... In effect, Kennan is asking the government of the United States to ignore what the Soviet Union is doing, and the explanations for that policy offered by its highest and most responsible leaders, and to base our policy on his assurance that Mr. Brezhnev is a man of peace. That is an imprudent footing for national security.
PART III
John Lewis Gaddis: There is in Kennan’s earlier writings a degree of foresight and a consistency of strategic vision for which it would be difficult to find a contemporary parallel. Kennan is not often regarded as a strategist, but if “strategy” is thought of as the rational relationship of national objectives to national capabilities, then he has as good a claim as anyone to having devised a coherent American strategy for dealing with the postwar world.... One can only hope that the full range of Kennan’s writings will be fully taken as text, though, and not just the misleading, but eminently persuasive, “X” article.
Eduard Mark: Gaddis adduces several arguments in favor of a “narrow” containment, none of which is compelling. Correctly observing that Kennan distinguished between Communism and Soviet expansionism, Gaddis assumes that containment had a limited purview because it was directed at the latter and not necessarily at radical movements drawing their inspiration from the former. This conclusion, however, does not follow.... Kennan’s indignant insistence that containment was not open-ended stems not so much from limits inherent in the policy itself as from the faith he once had in the capacity of containment to exacerbate certain fundamental weaknesses in the Soviet system.
