American Diplomacy

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American Diplomacy, by George F. Kennan, consists of two sets of lectures that Kennan gave in the 1950s plus two articles he wrote for Foreign Affairs. The lectures present lessons Kennan derived from his studies and/or personnel experience in selected episodes of US diplomatic history from the Spanish-American War through the Cold War. Some of the most interesting observations from his lectures include the following. * Any system of world law is inherently based on some set of moral principles, stated or not, which make transgressors into moral outcasts. Enforcement of world law then becomes a moral crusade, frequently resulting in a war that lasts to the bitter end. * Diplomacy needs to rely on a case-by-case consideration of each situation and search for the best resolution to each conflict. * Prior to WWI, wars were more limited in objectives. Total war probably eliminates the possibility of total victory, save by the annihilation of the enemy. Diplomacy based on national self-interest works better because it doesn't create moral crusades, thereby allowing negotiation, compromise, and the termination of conflicts on terms short of total victory for either side. * Truth and reason are poor competitors when confronted with moral certitude. WWI was a transition from truth and reason to moral certitude and hatred on both sides, and these seeds grew into WWII and the Cold War. * Once war has been entered, democracies tend to fight to the bitter end, demanding unconditional surrender, to teach the adversary an unforgettable lesson. This was demonstrated in both world wars. As long as Hitler led Nazi Germany, there may not have been a feasible alternative to unconditional surrender. However, publically announcing unconditional surrender as our non-negotiable war aim probably undermined any possibility of Hitler's removal by more rational elements of the German army. * How do individual ethics differ from national or collective ethics? The individual has far more freedom since only he is impacted by his choices. * Diplomacy based on a concept of world law will fail because such a structure is inherently too rigid, ignores interactions of domestic and international affairs, assumes that all nations are equally legitimate, and relies on collective military action for enforcement, ignoring the centrifugal nature of coalitions. It also ignores the problem of large, powerful states' unwillingness to abide by the legal system. Kennan's two papers from Foreign Affairs are equally interesting. * "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (1947) is the public version the Kennan's famous "Long Telegram" sent from the US Embassy in Moscow in 1946. In it, Kennan laid the foundations for the policy of containment which served as the basis for US policy toward the Soviet Union for the next 40 years. In Kennan's mind, containment was primarily a political and economic, rather than military, policy. His views led to the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, thereb

I read this book as a text book for a class in American Foreign Policy that I took and I was surprized to find that it was still relevant to today's issues. Kennan's premise that our foreign policy is based on idealism rather than realism is still true. Some of the past incidents he covers parallel some of the same attitudes we have today in expecting foreign nations to act like we do. Our naive idea that Iraq could be turned into a western style democracy is addressed in the historical episodes described by Kennan. The use of the media in the Spanish American war parallels our present experience. We seem to base our foreign policy on our perceptions of the world as we think it is rather than a realistic evaluation of what is really going on.

The original title of this book, American Diplomacy 1900-1950, is misleading. It implies that this is a study of American diplomacy between the two dates. Wrong. The book is split into two parts.The first part is based on a series of lectures given by Kennan. Each talk looks at a specific event (Spanish American War, WWI or WWII) and draws a general lesson from that event that can be applied to other times and places.For example, the lesson (well, one of them) Kennan draws from his lecture on the Spanish-American War and the US grab for empire is that the US often does not adequately consider the consequences of its actions. In particular, we do not consider what to do after the fighting stops. Hmm, does that sound familiar?The second part is a reprint of two famous Kennan articles. The first is the Mr. X article laying out the theory of containment. The second speculates about the nature of a Russia that has gone through the changes hypothesized in the first piece.These two pieces might seem dated, but there are some points that are still vary valid. For example, Kennan stress that US must be on the side of the angels. He thinks that the USSR's fall is inevitable. He wants the Russian people to think well of the US when that event happens. The first article (and the "long telegram" on which it was based) provides a great model for any analysis of an enemy state and the proper way to think about US policy

This book is a collection of speeches by George F. Kennan made during the Cold War. For those unfamiliar with the author, he is the author of the famous "X" article, The Sources of Soviet Conduct, which served as the intellectual foundation of the Containment Doctrine. Although dated, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, this short book provides a useful look not only at the ideas of one of our most eminent Cold War thinkers, but also of the atmosphere and conditions of the period.