Description
No problem of foreign policy is more important today than that of U.S. relations with the world of Communism. And no name commands greater respect in the study of that problem than that of George F. Kennan. In this book, based on the noted Elihu Root Lectures, he offers a summary of his own thinking on the special difficulties currently facing our country as it confronts a rapidly changing Communist world. From the vantage point of 30 years of study and experience as a career diplomat, author and scholar, Mr. Kennan points to the path he thinks America should travel if it wishes to profit from the challenges and opportunities presented by the Communist bloc today. Implicit in the American dilemma of decision, Mr. Kennan feels, is the rigidity of thinking which betrays so many into seeing the individual Communist nations as identical chips from the same monolith. Also, he shows that the problems which the West faces in dealing with the eastern nations today are little different in principle from those which had to be faced in the earliest years of Communist threat. In the American past, Mr. Kennan points out, certain basic lessons were learned through experiment and debate, and he feels that these lessons have much to offer the U.S. today. But to be of help, they must be recognized. For this reason, this book may serve as a kind of refresher course in the problems and principles of the past, and the light they reflect on the present. Mr. Kennan casts a cold eye on the ungiving climate of American opinion, which in his view makes it difficult to adopt and pursue a properly flexible policy toward the separate nations of the Communist world. He also examines the deep changes in the structure of world Communism which have permitted the rise of independent and partially independent states, and examines with special care the rancorous relations between Moscow and Peking. As a sure-footed guide to the world of Communism, Mr. Kennan has few equals. In this book he provides the reader with a wisely reasoned review of the choices which face American foreign policy at the present time.
