A KENNAN FOR OUR TIMES: - Revisiting America’s Greatest 20th Century Diplomat in the 21st Century

KENNAN, CONTAINMENT, AND THE WEST’S CURRENT RUSSIA PROBLEM Matthew Rojansky and Michael Kimmage At the core of the Western strategy for managing the Cold War from the late 1940s to the 1980s was an American-led policy of “containment” of Soviet power and influence Its principal author, George F Kennan, diagnosed in Soviet foreign policy an expansionist undercurrent, which had the potential to thre. [...] Kennan at the Wilson Center sia’s expansionist policies and malign influence on the world stage135 179 Although circumstances around the conflict between Russia and the West today differ considerably from those of the Cold War, the conflict nonetheless poses a serious threat to European security and stability and demands a careful and comprehensive Western response Containment is relevant today, i. [...] They “embodied that pattern of integrity of mind and spirit, moderation and delicacy of character, irreproachable loyalty in personal relations, modesty of person combined with dignity of office, and kindliness and generosity in the approach to all who were weaker and more dependent, which constitutes, it seems to me, our finest contribution to the variety of the human species in this world and co. [...] 123 See, for example, The Kennan Diaries, page 603: “I have no confidence in the prospects for anything like a mingling of the races in South Africa, nor can I permit myself to hope that the whites will be permitted to retain very much of the quality of their own lives, or indeed of the vitality of the economy, in a country dominated, on the principle of one-man, one-vote, by a large African major. [...] Kennan and Ameri- can Policy in East Asia (Cornell University Press, 2018) Michael Kimmage, Professor of History, The Catholic University of America Michael Kimmage served from 2014 2017 on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio His most recent book, The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, is forthcoming wi.