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George Kennan

            George Keenan first appeared on the political scene in a big in February of 1946. He was an ambassador for the United States to countries in Eastern Europe and Moscow. Keenan was in a position where he was able to see the true happenings in the Soviet Union and was the first person to alert officials in the United States that the plans for a Soviet, U.S. alliance was idealistic at best. Keenan was able to see the fundamental differences between the two super powers and knew that the United States would not be able to work with the Soviets, and they would not work with the U.S. It was not until after Churchill's "Iron curtain" speech that Keenan began to push for a "Hard-line" U.S. foreign policy in regards to the Soviet Union and Communism. Keenan believed that the Soviets would attempt to spread their influence throughout Europe and then the world and the only way to prevent them from gaining total world domination would be to suppress their expansion before they became too powerful. Keenan also thought that if faced with a power greater then their own, the Soviets would back down rather then fight. Keenan's plans to control the Soviet Union became known as "Containment" and would be the backbone of U.S. foreign policy for the next forty-five years. Keenan claimed that if the spread of Communism was contained it would do one of two things; self-destruct or it would become a non-threat. .
             The idea of "Containment" was not a hard plan to sell to most people at home in the United States. As with any major policy however, there were those that did not believe it would work. Henry Wallace, for example, thought that the U.S. was making a major mistake by attempting to use force as a deterrent to the Soviets. This is another area that has come under much political debate and will be discussed later in this essay. It would not be long until the U.S. was given a chance to prove its "Containment" theory to the world, and skeptics at home.


Essays Related to George Kennan

1. George Kennan's American Diplomacy

Critiquing American Diplomacy George Kennan's American Diplomacy provides anyone studying American politics with an accurate glimpse of American ideology, misperception and thought in the first half of the twentieth century. Even though this book is a collection of lectures where there is obvious subjectivity, Kennan successfully displays an objective view on the topics he discusses in the lecture. Kennan's lecture gives the reader a panoramic ... of separations, domestic disintegration, and the weakening of the deeper fabrics of society--is a process which of itself can achieve no positive a...

  • Word Count: 1225
  • Approx Pages: 5
  • Grade Level: Graduate

2. George Kennan

During the mid-1940s, George Kennan, the "father of containment" and the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow, understood and relayed the Russian Marxist way of thinking better then any American. In February of 1946, Kennan sent an extraordinarily "Long Telegram" (8,000 words) to the U.S. State Department, underscoring the centuries-old "Russian sense ... the officials in Washington that, "The USSR still lives in antagonistic capitalist encirclement with which there can be no permanent peaceful coexistence." Kennan argued that the solution to the dealing with the Soviets was to contain them. Just six m...

  • Word Count: 315
  • Approx Pages: 1
  • Has Bibliography

3. Democracy, George Orwell, and Individualism

... should be!" By forcing and ruling the people of the world with censorship and brainwashing, we have built ourselves up to the image of "Big Brother" (George Orwell, 1984), which is a thought controlling power ruled by a Dictatorship and covered up by a equality facade through censorship. I believe the statement written by ... The Cold War Containment Policy" as the powder keg that started the black cloud of secrecy known as, The Cold War. The policy was formed around George F. Kennan's public debate about halting the growing expansion of the very powerful and newly Communist Russia. I al...

  • Word Count: 1826
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

4. American Diplomatic Style

... the authors of the other two readings, though neither explicitly discusses it. American Diplomacy "The concepts and methods of a small neutral nation " have "great quality and dignity" George Kennan George F. Kennan places importance on the way that policy is formed in the United States regarding international affairs. In particular, though, he seems to question more the actions taken in each instance ... history. Synthesis "There seems to be a curious American tendency to search, at all times, for a single external center of evil, to which all our trouble can be attributed." George F. K...

  • Word Count: 1630
  • Approx Pages: 7
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

5. A Letter to President Truman

... to prevent war it has been the strategy of the U.S since the beginning of Communism to contain Communism and not necessarily abolish it. A Memorandum from George Kennan states, "It is not essential to us to see an anti-Soviet Korean regime extended to all of Korea for all time" ... ; (George Kennan, Aug. 1950). Mr. Kennan is explaining the fundamental fact that the U.S does not need to have a full engagement with the North. This is due to the fact that at ... to a Korea, "We could eventually tolerate for a certain period of time provided this state of affairs were brought about grad...

  • Word Count: 981
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

6. Cold War

... is not necessarily precise either, caused by its broadened aspects of blame. The containment policy was the foreign political strategy practiced by the United States following World War II. George F. Kennan, a diplomat and also a U.S. State Department adviser concerning Soviet Union matters, was the first to present this policy to the public. In the infamous "X" article ... Doctrine. This promised urgent economic and military assistance to Turkey and Greece. It was said that any plans implemented regarding foreign policy post 1945 were to aid Strategies of Containment. Kennan's political...

  • Word Count: 1433
  • Approx Pages: 6
  • Grade Level: High School

7. Truman and the Soviet Union - 1945-1949

... state and held a communist economic system that the U.S wanted to hold a 'containment' foreign policy towards. Containment was first described in Defense Secretary George Kennan's Long Telegram. In it, he described Soviet power as scattered and dangerous, and claimed that it must be contained. Truman handled the nation's containment policy ... responding to threatening soviet acts, Truman handled the soviet threat to the best of any presidential ability. Following George Kennan's Long Telegram in 1946, Truman knew he had to act upon Kennan's analysis of the current state in Europe. ...

  • Word Count: 918
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Grade Level: High School

8. Marshall Plan and NATO

... of government. I would like to discuss the objectives and successfulness of these two strategies. George Kennan recommended the Marshall Plan to shore up economic weaknesses in western European nations devastated by World War II. Kennan felt that such a program would help restore Europe's self-confidence, and in turn, ... of Eastern Europe or Asia would see the support given to other nations and decide against Communism in order to receive support as well. Kennan argued that the Marshall Plan might be too little too late for Europe though, citing that America should not help nations that...

  • Word Count: 664
  • Approx Pages: 3
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

9. American Exceptionalism in the Cold War (1947-1961)

... importance of the ideology and its usage in the early years of the Cold War cannot be stressed enough. Botts, Joshua. "Nothing to Seek and . . . Nothing to Defend": George F. Kennan's Core Values and American Foreign Policy, 1938–1993. (Diplomatic History Volume 30, Issue 5, November 2006) Ceaser, James. American exceptionalism: Is it real, is it good?: ... Korea (Washington Post, July 2nd 1950) Gladstone, William. Kin Beyond Sea. (The North American Review 1878) Ignatieff, Michael. American Exceptionalism and Human Rights. (Princeton University Press, 10th January 2009) Kennan, ...

  • Word Count: 4596
  • Approx Pages: 18

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