One of the most fascinating things that I was introduced to in my days as a student at UGA was this.

The piece was initially referred to as the “X” article printed as an anonymous contribution to Foreign Affairs magazine in 1947.  Later, it became known that an American diplomat stationed in Moscow named George Kennan had authored the article.  Whether by force of argument or happenstance, in a real sense, the underlying message found within became a description of, and the rationale for, our policy in dealing with the USSR until its eventual implosion.  I found it fascinating at the time I first read it because the USSR had just collapsed and, if you spend time reading the article, you will find considerable prescience that such would be the ultimate result should the recommendations offered be adhered to.  It should be noted that prior to its introduction, our policies with respect to the USSR were materially different and that is why Kennan published the article:  frustration that other courses of action were being taken and his own ideas ignored. 

With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the path chosen led to victory and that victory came at a great cost in terms of blood and treasure, as well as in credibility at home and abroad.   National credibility was most undermined in areas such as our wish to project a commitment to human rights, democracy, and peace.  Containment meant, of necessity, abandoning (deprioritizing?) a lot of those ideals, abroad mainly but not exclusively, at least in the short term. 

It has struck me in the years since that JFK’s June 1963 speech at American University, less than six months prior to his murder, represents a clear deviation from the containment course set some 15 years prior.  JFK’s call was not for containment and confrontation, but rather for an opportunity to preserve the credibility of American ideals by offering the world our example and thereby present what is inarguably a better choice than what the USSR could offer.  In short, JFK offered a more justifiable and palatable path with a promise of the same end: victory over Soviet Communism.  

I do not presuppose to know whether, given the opportunity, that new course would have resulted in a better/worse outcome for the country.  I do question whether the critics of containment (our late Ranger Russ might call these folks pinko, hippie types) fully appreciate what permissive creeping of Soviet influence may have led to if not at all times aggressively checked.  That is to say, inasmuch as any decent person would have preferred whatever Salvador Allende never had a chance to do over what we now know Augusto Pinochet actually did, who can say that exalting self-determination over containment at all costs would not have only extended the life of the Soviet menace, but may also have enhanced its potential lethality? Not lethal in a nuclear arms sense, a capability that was obviously maximized, but in terms of having the wealth to support armed communist revolutions abroad. In short, being cold-blooded bastards and taking shortcuts did pay off, but at a cost that we will never fully understand whether it was worth paying, but defenders can point to the W. Critics can also point to, among other things, the Ayatollah. Does the Iranian Islamic Revolution take place if we don’t replace Mosaddegh with the Shah? Likely not.  

And it is still very debatable to what degree our commitment to the Vietnam War fit within this Soviet containment policy and furthered our goals or whether we simply weathered a really bad set of decisions for the same reasons that we ultimately succeeded overall: our system was far superior in efficiency to theirs.

It seems to me that an appreciation for that contest of ideas both at home and abroad in the immediate post-WWII era is a required foundation for understanding the post-Cold War era in which we now live.  Our internal politics have been indelibly marked by that contest of ideas. Likewise, our external policies now confront how the struggle abroad was conducted.  And we know we have to deal with at least one very pissed off, and embarrassed, former KGB agent who would love nothing more than payback for his beloved Mother Russia as well as the aforementioned Iranians creating trouble among the Yemenis, Iraqis, Lebanese and Palestinians. 

Current policy decisions about foreign commitments and entanglements and multilateralism itself, if to be understood, must be viewed through a prism of understanding how we were drawn into, and how we successfully ended, the conflict with the USSR.  That would include the internal conditions in Russia, as described in the article, which led to the Bolshevik revolution, which ought to be a cautionary tale should you wish to avoid living under such conditions yourself. 

It should also include some proud reflection upon our capacity as a nation to fend off such threats and what that success says about its inhabitants and its founding principles. I, for one, think that we, for all of our historical faults, represent a promise of hope in a world that would otherwise lack any. We, in my view, ought to continue to bear the burden of that promise until such time as the world, or a sufficient part of it as to guarantee peace, embraces and adopts our principles of capitalism and democracy and forever abandons any and all notions of dictatorship, kleptocracy, monarchy, theocracy, sectarianism and/or colonialism… by whatever means necessary.

Discuss.