Status
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Description
For more than sixty years, George F. Kennan's American Diplomacy has been a standard work on American foreign policy. Drawing on his considerable diplomatic experience and expertise, Kennan offers an overview and critique of the foreign policy of an emerging great power whose claims to rightness often spill over into self-righteousness, whose ambitions conflict with power realities, whose judgmentalism precludes the interests of other states, and whose domestic politics frequently prevent prudent policies and result in overstretch. Keenly aware of the dangers of military intervention and the negative effects of domestic politics on foreign policy, Kennan identifies troubling inconsistencies in the areas between actions and ideals--even when the strategies in question turned out to be decided successes. In this expanded sixtieth-anniversary edition, a substantial new introduction by John J. Mearsheimer, one of America's leading political realists, provides new understandings of Kennan's work and explores its continued resonance. As America grapples with its new role as one power among many--rather than as the "indispensable nation" that sees "further into the future"--Kennan's perceptive analysis of the past is all the more relevant. Today, as then, the pressing issue of how to wield power with prudence and responsibility remains, and Kennan's cautions about the cost of hubris are still timely. Refreshingly candid, American Diplomacy cuts to the heart of policy issues that continue to be hotly debated today. "These celebrated lectures, delivered at the University of Chicago in 1950, were for many years the most widely read account of American diplomacy in the first half of the twentieth century."--Foreign Affairs, Significant Books of the Last 75 Years… (more)
User reviews
gleaning lessons which will enhance American security in the present (i.e. 1951).
It is virtually impossible from the perspective of 1993 to view his assessment of WWI outside the context of the Cold War. It is the Soviet threat which concerns Kennan. Hence, his primary criticism of America's approach to WWI is that America aided in the destruction of Europe's balance of powers and ultimately opened the door to Nazi and then Soviet expansionism. If only America had recognized in 1914 that its interests were involved in this European conflict, and not sought the total defeat of Germany after its entrance into the war, the conflict could have been brought to a close more quickly and we would not have had to fight a war against Nazism (not to mention the Cold War). Yet, even Kennan admits in this short piece that popular opinion would have been extremely hard to sway in favor of military intervention before April 1917, or for moderation once the fight was joined. Certainly unhappy with President Wilson's leadership, Kennan is even less happy with the functioning of democracy. Therein lies the rub.
For Kennan, the central problem in American foreign policy is how to maintain the external trappings of democracy while gutting its content. As such Kennan's interpretation of history goes beyond traditionalism (which focuses on the policies of elites) and enters the realm of elitism, urging the positive role of elites in determining what is "best" for the benighted American nation.