To Handle Russia And Iran, The U.S. Must Embrace A New Guiding Principle

In these confused times, we need a new X. We’re not talking about Elon Musk’s social networking service, formerly called Twitter, but rather the author of the profoundly consequential article published in 1947 in Foreign Affairs magazine, who laid out the strategy for dealing with the Soviet Union after WWII. The strategy came to be summed up in one word: “containment.”

The article was one of the most influential pieces in publishing history. The author, George Kennan, was a foreign service officer and a deeply learned Russian specialist, who had long been stationed in our Moscow embassy. His State Department bosses thought it best that he remain anonymous; hence, the “X” instead of his actual name.

After the war, the U.S. had hoped it could keep friendly relations with the Soviet Union, an ally during the conflict. The Kremlin, however, soon engaged in a series of disturbingly aggressive actions. Despite promises to the contrary, it was forcibly installing puppet communist governments in eastern and central European countries from which it had expelled the occupying Nazi German armies. It was refusing to remove its forces from Northern Iran and was maneuvering to control the Dardanelles strait, a critical international waterway separating European and Asian Turkey. It also controlled powerful Communist parties in France and Italy, which were positioning themselves to gain control of weak democratic governments, and it was supporting communist insurgencies in Asia.

Americans had supposed that once hostilities ended, we could withdraw our forces from Europe and Asia and all would be well with the world.

Initially, Washington’s response to the Soviet Union’s moves was confused, and it was uncertain how to respond. But two documents, both written by Kennan, led to what became our Cold War strategy of containment. We wouldn’t go to war to liberate the neighboring countries the Soviet Union already controlled, but we actively worked to counter Soviet advances elsewhere, including a huge break from American tradition by stationing sizable and permanent military forces in Western Europe.

Kennan’s first game-changer was a lengthy cable to the State Department pointing out that Russia had had a long history of aggression before the Communist revolution. Communism was another instrument the Kremlin used to help extend its reach. Expansion was in the Kremlin’s DNA.

Kennan’s analysis was dubbed “the Long Telegram” and began to crystallize sentiment within the U.S. government of how to deal with an aggressive Moscow.

To win wider support for what would be a radical change in traditional U.S. foreign policy and our role in the world, Kennan subsequently wrote an article based on the Long Telegram for the influential Foreign Affairs magazine.

Containment wasn’t just military. It involved promoting prosperity via reducing trade barriers and other pro-growth policies that would create conditions in which democratic ideas might advance.

Today our world is as uncertain and confused as the one we faced in the late 1940s, and we’re clearly uncertain of to how proceed. U.S. policies have been caricatures: We can turn the terrorists ruling Iran into responsible global players! And ill-conceived: Windmills can replace fossil fuels! Ill-conceived and ad hoc policies with no reliable, confidence-inducing consistency. To make matters worse, most leaders of advanced economies are astoundingly clueless as to how to create conditions for vibrant prosperity.

There’s no guiding principle today like containment—and all it once meant. It’s high time the U.S. found a new X and a new guiding principle. A world at loose ends is a world headed for big trouble.