Investigating George Kennan's Foreign Policy Record

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George Kennan: Served in the Truman Administration from 1947-1952

Personal Characteristics: Impactful, Insecure, an Outcast

Impactful, Policy-Wise: George Kennan, while not having a conventionally impactful role in the American government, molded much of America’s foreign policy initiatives during his time serving in the Truman Administration. So much so that “[I]n March 1948, George Kennan, then head of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, cabled U.S representatives in Europe: ‘As far as Europe is concerned, Italy is obviously key point. If Communists were to win election there our whole position in Mediterranean and possible in Europe as well, would probably be undermined,’ So seriously did Kennan take the matter that he even recommended outright American intervention should the Communists win…” So impactful was Kennan with his positions, that it directly affected American organizations, such as the CIA, to become more aggressive toward the Soviet Union.

Description by Author: Although Kennan had a way with words that caught the attention of many, for the most part, he was relegated to the shadows. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas stated: “George Frost Kennan, an insecure boy from Milwaukee, came to Princeton as an outsider and resolutely cast himself in that role even after he became the intellectual darling of the Washington elite. His long career in the Foreign Service was an anguished one: he seemed to relish being unappreciated and misunderstood. Yet for a brief period at the onset of the Cold War, his ideas about the Soviets helped coalesce a nebulous attitude among policy makers in Washington.” 

Embraced His Role as an Outcast: Even though Kennan was thrown into the proverbial spotlight by his own actions, Kennan favored the shadows and did not want to have the typical D.C elite life. “... Kennan had tortuously conflicting feelings about being tapped to be part of the American elite. Whenever he seemed about to meld comfortably into the American establishment, be it at Princeton or in Washington, he would resolutely cast himself as an outsider, deriving an almost perverse pleasure from the stings and slights that can befall those who neither fully accept nor reject its embrace.”   

The International Context: 

Soviet Aggression: Similar to Truman, Kennan, as he served in the Truman Administration, had to deal with the same problems (for the most part) that the President did. The reason Kennan became famous in the first place was for his opinions on how the U.S. should deal with an increasingly aggressive Russia. Interestingly enough, Winston Churchill echoed many of Kennan’s points in his “Iron Curtain Speech,” arguing that “Soviet expansionism threatened world peace and a militarily strong ‘fraternal association of the English speaking peoples’ was needed to counter it. Agreeing with Kennan that Soviet leaders did not want war, Churchill argued that they sought ‘the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.’” This speech, which was at first highly controversial, helped escalate the international tensions of the time, and furthermore increasing public opinion to act against Russian expansionist tendencies.  

Miscellaneous Events: A multitude of events will be packed together in this section, as they were discussed in Truman’s report. These events, which had American influence, but lacked much to do with Kennan specifically, were all important consequences for his time serving under the Truman Administration. Events such as the Greek Civil War, Chinese Civil War, Russian intervention in Iran, Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, Stalin’s Bolshoi Theater speech, and the Korean War, were all consequential for the construction of U.S. policy at the time. 

Key Foreign Policies: 

The Long Telegram: One of, if not the most influential writing of Kennan’s career was his “Long Telegram.” This message has been called “the most influential cable in the history of the American Foreign Service.” The purpose of the message was to alert the American federal government to Russia’s foreign policy initiatives following Stalin’s Bolshoi Theater speech, which most certainly keyed in American officials to the issue of Soviet aggression. According to Kennan, Russia’s Marxist propaganda “claimed to be motivated by a belief that the inherent conflicts of capitalism would cause Western countries to launch “wars of intervention” against the Soviets.” While his policy of “containment” would go down in the history books for its fame and applicability to American foreign policy at the time, Kennan would later “complain that he did not intend his theory of Soviet ‘containment’ to be interpreted as primarily a military response,” but was clearly discussed in the Long Telegram, as he argued that the Soviets would possibly wilt under militaristic pressure from the West.  

Hatred for Russia: While Kennan studied the communist Russian regime quite closely, he had a true disdain for the Russian government itself, which partially led into his theory of containing Russian aggression. Kennan “despised the Soviet system with a fervor approaching Forrestal’s and he was alarmed by the threat of Russian expansionism. But he did not see Communist dogma as the primary source of the menace.” Moreover, Kennan saw Russia and its Marxist doctrine as the problem, not communism in a vacuum. With that being said, an important distinction to note in Kennan’s policy toward Russia, was his belief that they wanted to prevent war as much as possible. “...Kennan was not convinced that war with the Soviets was inevitable. Because the security of their country took precedence over considerations of a global Communist crusade, Kremlin leaders were unlikely to embark on reckless wars of aggression.”  

Policy Toward Korea: Following the Inchon operation, conducted by American and the UN, which retook South Korea from the invading North Koreans, Kennan heeded an important warning to the American federal government: do not cross the thirty-eighth parallel. Furthermore, Kennan warned that if the UN/U.S. troops indeed crossed the parallel, that “the Russians would not ‘sit by;’ they might themselves reoccupy North Korea or introduce Chinese Communist forces. They would not ‘leave the field tree for us to sweep up the peninsula and place ourselves forty or forty five miles from Vladivostock.” Although Kennan and the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department were adamant about their opinions, Truman ignored them and gave General MacArthur the go-ahead to invade North Korea. 

Kennan and The New National Security Council (NSC-68): The authors of NSC-68, while agreeing partially with Kennan’s views of international relations, largely strayed away from his policies. For Kennan, he “saw American security as dependent upon the maintenance of a balance of power… Kennan had argued that there were only five meaningful centers of power in the world–the industrial complexes of the United States, Great Britain, the Rhine valley, the Soviet Union, and Japan–and that as long as no more than one of these was under hostile control, international equilibrium would be preserved.” The authors of NSC-68 would then change the direction of American foreign policy away from Kennan’s views, for the most part. 

The X-Article: While the author of the article in Foreign Affairs was George Kennan, that knowledge was not known at its publication, the article still gained much notoriety for terming “containment” as a policy for preventing further Russian aggression and expansion. In short, the X-Article argued for American foreign policy to respond to the Soviet belief that they were surrounded by strong, oppressive capitalist powers, and would attempt to restrict the UN and the West’s ability to obstruct them. Although Kennan’s assertions not only in the X-Article, but his opinions while in public office differed slightly, the X-Article was important for influencing a long-term, but patient containment of the USSR. 

Positive Achievements: 

A Greater Impact Than His Role Would Suggest: Unlike every other actor I have completed a report card on to this point, George Kennan is the first to have not served as either President or Secretary of State, meaning that his role and achievements, along with his drawbacks, outweigh the perceived power as his role as a policy planner, even though they theoretically shouldn’t. That in itself is a positive achievement, as Kennan played a crucial part in planning American foreign policy while not even in a formal federal role, just remarkable all things considered. Furthermore, he greatly altered the dynamic of American foreign policy by bringing the strategy of containment to the forefront. Since his policies were at least somewhat adhered to, it exemplified the great respect for Kennan’s intellect and specialty for understanding Soviet intentions. 

The Long Telegram: An example of Kennan’s impact on American foreign policy prior to his role in the government, came from the Long Telegram, which led to him being taken under the wing of James Forrestal, and eventually working in Truman’s Administration. The impact of Kennan’s Long Telegram was profound, and respected by many in Washington, as they used it to implement policy. “But for a brief and critical period, Kennan’s outlook and the pendulum of official U.S. thinking coincided. He had given a resonant voice to the unarticulated unease that was growing in Washington.”  

Correct About Korea: George Kennan, along with Chip Bohlen, Kennan’s partner as Soviet specialist in the State Department, warned the Truman Administration against crossing the thirty-eighth parallel into North Korea, as they thought that Chinese and Soviet forces would intervene in the conflict. While their pleas were ignored, they were proven correct, as both the Soviets and Chinese sent delegations to the UN to resolve the crisis, along with the Chinese eventually entering the war in order to preserve its national security. This is an achievement for Kennan because it is another example of his policy positions being correct, yet this was one that fell upon deaf ears. The Korean war could have been a relatively contained conflict had the U.S. and UN not pushed into North Korea. However, Kennan’s warnings were not heeded, and the War became a far greater issue than necessary for the United States.

Correct About the International “Equilibrium”: While NSC-68 defied much of Kennan’s opinions regarding international relations, he was proven to be largely correct. The main area of contention has to do with Kennan’s assertion that the international equilibrium, revolving around five aforementioned meaningful centers of power in the world, would be maintained as long as foreign intervention against those centers of power was prevented. Since this was ignored by the authors of NSC-68, it led the U.S. down a path of great foreign interference, which harmed its reputation through America’s decision to protect brutal dictatorships over possible communist regimes. Since America stepped on the toes of other centers of power, it proved that Kennan’s intuition on the matter was correct, and that the U.S. should have been focused more so on the preservation of the balance of power, and not completely undermining other powers, such as the USSR.  

Correct About Vietnam: As the Korean War was raging, President Truman elected to send more aid to the opponents of the communist Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam. Once this occurred, Kennan advised Truman to stop, calling it a “no-win” situation. Although Kennan was ignored, he was correct in this instance. The consistent aid given to Ho’s opponents resulted in him going to the Chinese and Soviet Union for support, which was granted, furthering the worsening relations between America and Ho’s Vietnam. 

Negative Drawbacks: 

Not Enough Influence: Although this was largely out of his control, Kennan’s immense impact on American foreign policy appears to have only lasted a short while. Furthermore, it seems as if the elites in Washington took his policy initiatives, like containment, too far, leading to the creation of the military industrial complex. Kennan himself even stated “that what I was talking about when I mentioned the containment of Soviet power was not the containment by military means of a military threat, but the political containment of a political threat.” Besides the fact that the U.S. pushed the policy of containment to its limits, they ignored other instances in which Kennan was correct, such as the counteroffensive in North Korea and the policy initiatives of NSC-68. Again, this is not a direct negative aspect of Kennan’s foreign policies, but does show the limits of his influence compared to his contemporaries in these report cards. 

Inconsistent Messaging: Furthering the point of Kennan’s policies being mistaken, it can partially fall back on Kennan’s inconsistent messaging on issues. As Kennan stated when discussing the X-Article: “Certain of the language used–such as “a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies” or “the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points--was at best ambiguous, and lent itself to misinterpretation in this aspect.” So, while it is true that those in Washington took his foreign political opinions to the extreme, Kennan partially stoked this flame, then tried to fan the flames with revisionist points. 

Final Grade: A/ While Kennan was a victim of his status in Washington, his impact, while short-lived in hindsight, was a remarkable success story. Not only did Kennan influence American foreign policy in its most influential era globally, he continued to be correct on further issues, showing his broad intellect outside of exclusively being an expert on the Soviet Union. However, his misplaced language regarding subjects such as the X-Article, along with simply not having enough influence to stop the growing momentum of containment, somewhat created a warmongering monster based on his policy initiatives. This is not to say that this is entirely negative, as the Cold War era was one in which America flourished, and eventually won the Cold War. Yet, if Kennan were taken more seriously, he could have been able to prevent America from making crucial mistakes in places like Korea. In short, Kennan was not able to influence American foreign policy enough solely because of his status and position, but did so much more than any other person below the role of Secretary of State can boast. For those reasons, Kennan deserves an A. 

References:

1. Ralph Levering, Vladimir Pechatnov, Verena Botzenhart-Viehe, and Earl Edmondson, “The American Perspective,” “The Russian Perspective,” Debating the Origins of the Cold War (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 28-48, 85-105.
2. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, “Architects of the American Century,” “Containment,” “Order From Chaos,” “Crisis,” Wise Men, (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster), excerpts from 19-26, 351-56, 381-85, 390-91, 404-8, 413-16, and 451-53.
3. Willard Matthias, “The Korean War: A Pivotal Event,” America’s Strategic Blunders, (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press), 71-95.
4. “George Kennan,” in Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 34-35.
5. Kennan Reassesses Containment Two Decades Later,” in Chester, ed., Scope and Variety, vol. II, 367-69.
6. John Lewis Gaddis, “George F. Kennan and the Strategy of Containment,” Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 24-52.
7. John Lewis Gaddis and Paul Nitze, “NSC 68 and the Soviet Threat Reconsidered,” International Security 4, 4 (Spring 1980), 164-76.