Stop Twenty: Princeton, New Jersey
Starting in the 1950’s Kennan would become increasingly disturbed by what he felt like were misinterpretations of his positions. He did argue for containment but did not think that it was wise for the US to stop communism everywhere in the world. He thought that we should focus on key locations (Western Europe and Japan) and leave the rest of the world alone. He believed that we should seek to make our system more just and if others were interested in it they could adopt it on their own.
In his own words, “The greatest service [the United States] could render the rest of the world would be to put its own house in order and to make of American civilization an example of decency, humanity, and societal success from which others could derive whatever they might find useful to their own purposes.”
Kennan was also dismayed by how containment became something to be carried out by the military as opposed to through talks, treaties and economic pressure. As he said in 1996: "My thoughts about containment were of course distorted by the people who understood it and pursued it exclusively as a military concept; and I think that that, as much as any other cause, led to [the] 40 years of unnecessary, fearfully expensive and disoriented process of the Cold War.”
Also in 1996, in an interview with PBS, Kennan stated that he never thought that the Soviet Union was a military threat. “They were not like Hitler,” he said. He said the misunderstanding probably came about due to one line in a policy article that he wrote.
As Kennan said: "[it] all came down to one sentence…where I said that wherever these people, meaning the Soviet leadership, confronted us with dangerous hostility anywhere in the world, we should do everything possible to contain it and not let them expand any further. I should have explained that I didn't suspect them of any desire to launch an attack on us. This was right after the war, and it was absurd to suppose that they were going to turn around and attack the United States. I didn't think I needed to explain that, but I obviously should have done it."
In his own words, “The greatest service [the United States] could render the rest of the world would be to put its own house in order and to make of American civilization an example of decency, humanity, and societal success from which others could derive whatever they might find useful to their own purposes.”
Kennan was also dismayed by how containment became something to be carried out by the military as opposed to through talks, treaties and economic pressure. As he said in 1996: "My thoughts about containment were of course distorted by the people who understood it and pursued it exclusively as a military concept; and I think that that, as much as any other cause, led to [the] 40 years of unnecessary, fearfully expensive and disoriented process of the Cold War.”
Also in 1996, in an interview with PBS, Kennan stated that he never thought that the Soviet Union was a military threat. “They were not like Hitler,” he said. He said the misunderstanding probably came about due to one line in a policy article that he wrote.
As Kennan said: "[it] all came down to one sentence…where I said that wherever these people, meaning the Soviet leadership, confronted us with dangerous hostility anywhere in the world, we should do everything possible to contain it and not let them expand any further. I should have explained that I didn't suspect them of any desire to launch an attack on us. This was right after the war, and it was absurd to suppose that they were going to turn around and attack the United States. I didn't think I needed to explain that, but I obviously should have done it."