Cunliffe,+Kennan


 * From: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA981.htm**

Spiked!, April 5, 2005
=After Kennan's 'containment'=


 * By Philip Cunliffe**

Excerpts:

… Kennan likened Stalinism to 'a malignant parasite, which feeds only on diseased tissue' (4). Though basically correct, Kennan missed the point that the nature of this 'parasite' revealed more about the 'diseased tissue' than it did about the USSR - the tissue and disease in this case being a crisis-ridden international capitalism. 'In these circumstances', Kennan reasoned, 'it is clear that the main elements of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies' (5). … to say that Kennan's vision was merely misinterpreted by Pentagon hawks is to overlook the flaw shared both by Kennan and the subsequent interpreters of his doctrine. Regardless of whether it was interpreted in a political or military sense, the problem with containment was that it was a purely negative doctrine, whereby all politics was defined defensively, as a retort to its perceived enemy (world communism). While Kennan saw the core problem as one of American 'spiritual vitality', this was still not a positive vision that could stand alone. Instead, the USSR was set up as the yardstick for measuring the extent of the 'internal problems' of US society.

In the words of historian Bruce Cumings: 'Imagine, a doctrine defining hegemony by what it opposes, obviating the necessity to explain to the American people what it is, and what its consequences will be for them.'

When the Cold War ended, US politics, including its diplomacy, was left disoriented and adrift. One measure of this disorientation is the remarkable flux in US foreign policy ideas since 1991. The intellectual volatility of the US foreign policy establishment is something that is frequently lost in the hysterical fixation with the neocons' geeky babbling about 'full spectrum dominance'.

… Kennan's vacuous strategic vision set the stage for the belligerent floundering of US foreign policy today.