Kennan, in a telegram, presented a clear view of the goals and methods of work of the Soviet Union and assumed that it would eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. He argued that the Stalinist regime’s need to view the outside world from a hostile perspective was a vital excuse for “a dictatorship without which they did not know how to rule, for atrocities that they did not dare to commit, to the sacrifice they felt obligated to demand.”
The cable is credited with laying the groundwork for a policy of “containment” and has become, in the words of Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, “the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union throughout the remainder of the Cold War.” Less than a month later, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill Made a speech in Fulton, Mo., Referring to several European countries that were then in the “Soviet realm,” and declaring that “an iron curtain has slid across the continent.”
Kennan’s legacy continues to cast a shadow over American foreign policy. He has come to Decry how he saw it “containment” Mainly driven by political and economic pressure – it has been replaced by a history of US military deployments around the world. Meanwhile, generations of policymakers have bored at “Long Telegram” to draw lessons from their own moment.
This is as true now as it has been at any time in the past three quarters of a century. Last month, the Atlantic Council published what it is Dubbed “Longer Telegram”, An article attributed to an anonymous former senior US official calls for a comprehensive strategy to confront China and for policymakers to remain “laser-focused” on Chinese President Xi Jinping, “his inner circle, and the Chinese political context in which they govern.”
The report concluded that the goal of the United States should be a scenario in which the United States and its close allies “continue to control the regional and global balance of power across all major indicators of power” by the middle of this century. Moreover, the Chinese hard line will be replaced by “more moderate party leadership” and there will be signs that the Chinese public is ready for a more liberal political system.
This is a long request, and “Longer Telegram” has been received. Opposition is expected from various quarters. Chinese officials and state media criticized the study as “Malicious attack, While some experts in Washington pointed out Perceived defects In her analysis, including an overestimation of the ideological threat that Beijing poses to the world order and an overemphasis on Xi’s own file in an attempt to speculate on the methods of China’s shadowy political system.
The anonymous author of the report realized that times had changed. The author wrote: “When George Kennan wrote The Long Telegram … focusing his analysis on what would ultimately lead to the failure of the Soviet Union, he assumed that the American economic model would continue to succeed on its own.” “The difference between the past and the present is that the assumption is no longer possible. The task at hand goes beyond concern for China’s internal vulnerabilities, and extends to American vulnerabilities as well. Without doing both, the United States will fail.”
President Biden and his allies have repeatedly confirmed this Their foreign policy begins at home. But they also face a political climate in Washington where they are speaking Great-power competition spreads with China, And increasingly bipartisan. Even so, many experts – including Kennan legacy scholars – caution that the same Cold War logic should be applied to the current challenge.
Thomas Graham, a former White House adviser on Russian affairs in the George W. Bush administration, said that China represents “the kind of strategic challenge the United States has never faced before, a peer competitor competing across all dimensions of power.”
“The world is no longer bipolar,” Graham told Today’s WorldView, referring to the Cold War dynamic that defined much of the 20th century. “The alternatives to American dominance – or leadership, as Biden wants – are clearly not worse.”
Meanwhile, global crises like the Coronavirus pandemic and climate change are forcing Washington and Beijing to confront the same threats. “All of these problems require cooperative solutions, not to deepen rivalries unnecessarily.” Daniel Nixon Books, Professor of Governance at Georgetown University. “When it is adopted as the primary model for external relations, great-power competition refers cooperation to an afterthought, or worse, it rejects it as naive.”
“The permanent coexistence between the United States and China will require each of them to accept the reality of the other’s flexibility. Ali Wayne Books, A senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, this week. “The Biden administration, then, has a compelling opportunity to present a confident and forward-looking vision of America’s role in the world – a vision in which strategic competition with China is an important component, but not the decisive factor.”
0 Comments