“If we had stopped testing, the greater part of the nuclear weaponry of all the countries who had signed the test ban treaty would have become inoperable in 20 or 30 years.”
Kennan in a 2002 interview.
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Monthly Archives: July 2006
On the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
Friday, July 28, 2006
On the War in Iraq
Thursday, July 27, 2006
“Anyone who has ever studied the history of American diplomacy, especially military diplomacy, knows that you might start in a war with certain things on your mind as a purpose of what you are doing, but in the end, you found yourself fighting for entirely different things that you had never thought of before… In [...]
On American Hegemony
Monday, July 24, 2006
“The best an American can look forward to is the lonely pleasure of one who stands at long last on a chilly and inhospitable mountaintop where few have been before, where few can follow and where few will consent to believe he has been.”
On Totalitarianism & America
Thursday, July 20, 2006
“The fact of the matter is that there is a little bit of the totalitarian buried somewhere, way down deep, in each and every one of us. It is only the cheerful light of confidence and security which keeps this evil genius down… If confidence and security were to disappear, don’t think that he would [...]
On Nuclear Weapons
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
“They reach beyond the frontiers of western civilization, to the concepts of warfare which were once familiar to the Asiatic hordes. They cannot really be reconciled with a political purpose directed to shaping, rather than destroying, the lives of the adversary. They fail to take into account the ultimate responsibility of men for one another, [...]
On Democratizing the Middle East
Saturday, July 15, 2006
“I would like to see our government gradually withdraw from its public advocacy of democracy and human rights. Let me stress: I am speaking of governments, not private parties. If others in our country want to advocate democracy or human rights (whatever those terms mean), that’s perfectly all right. But I don’t think any such [...]
On American Influence over North Korea
Friday, July 14, 2006
“My main impression with regard to the position of this Government with regard to the Far East is that we are greatly over-extended in our whole thinking about what we can accomplish, and should try to accomplish, in that area. This applies, unfortunately, to the people in our country as well as to the Government.
It [...]
On Global Warming and “An Inconvenient Truth”
Thursday, July 13, 2006
“Not only the international scientific community but the world public at large has great need, at this dark hour, of a new and more promising focus of attention. The great communist and Western powers, particularly, have need to replace the waning fixations of the cold war with interests which they can pursue in common and [...]
Welcome
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
As part of a new initiative by WorldHistory.com, this blog seeks to interpret current events through the words of George Frost Kennan, the father of American Cold War strategy and one of the most significant diplomats and foreign policy thinkers of the 20th century. This page’s insights will be drawn from Kennan’s articles, books, [...]