"X" Stood For Wisdom

21 March 2005



George Frost Kennan, 1904-2005

In July 1947, Foreign Affairs published an article signed "X," which laid out the Soviet threat and proposed the containment strategy of the Cold War that eventually undid the communist empire. "X" turned out to be George Frost Kennan, a professional diplomat and Russian specialist. The American neo-cons, whose war in Iraq just turned two years old, lack a Kennan who can explain the current threat because they don't understand it and have no desire to exercise the patience necessary to succeed in meeting the current threat.

Ambassador Kennan, first of all, knew his subject matter. He spoke Russian, having learned it as a condition of continuing in the foreign service. He was sent to Moscow in 1933 as part of the first American diplomatic mission to the Soviet Union. He also served there in 1944, while the USSR was an ally in the fight against Hitler. In 1946, he laid out (in his "long telegram" to Washington) the need to contain the USSR. There is no comparable neo-con who understands the enemy threatening America. Dr. Wolfowitz, at best, can claim a couple years service in Indonesia, a Muslim country but hardly the font of Fascislamic terror. The rest have even less background in Arab and Muslim issues -- Secretary of State Rice is a failed Sovietologist.

In addition, Ambassador Kennan understood that international organizations do not circumscribe American actions so much as they provide opportunities for America to create conditions under which its military power need not be used in pursuit of its interests. The interventions in Korea and Vietnam were not on his list of good ideas -- he opposed both. What he had sought was "The political containment of a political threat." And here his insight was flawless. The Soviet Union was first and foremost a political threat to the USA and its allies. Now that Moscow has a new political system, the threat is gone.

To the neo-conservatives, there is only one answer to the threat against the west -- military might. And this is doomed to be a hard slog because the enemy knows that it cannot win in conventional terms. So he will fight unconventionally. However, if force is not the sole response, if influence rather than power is utilized, America's allies will shoulder more of the burden, and there will be more allies as time progresses. The Fascislamic threat is not a military matter, but a social issue. It is a different view of how the world should work, and it is doomed because modern communications and the model of the west will eventually render it implausible.

This is important because, while America is the premier power in the world, its power is finite. The "coalition of the willing" is unraveling in Iraq, while the allies in Afghanistan are still committed to the mission. The Bush administration played the unilateral card in Iraq and is paying the price; Poland, Ukraine and the Netherlands have started bringing their troops home. Even the Roman Empire, which lasted 700 years longer than America has been independent, used auxiliary troops and allies in defending its borders. Or to put it in terms Mr. Bush might appreciate more, Gary Cooper faced the bad guys alone in "High Noon" only because he couldn't persuade anyone else to join him. But he did try to influence others before he went it alone.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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