The Lasting Legacy of George F. Kennan

John Lewis Gaddis, author of George F. Kennan: An American Life, discusses the diplomatic and personal legacy of George F. Kennan, former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union.
This meeting is part of a series hosted with the National History Center featuring prominent historians who will examine the events and times that shaped foreign policy as we know it today.
SPEAKER:
John Lewis Gaddis
PRESIDER:
Richard N. Haass
www.cfr.org/centraleastern-eur...

[@eoinhogan152]

John Lewis Gaddis, strategies of containment was my almanac in university it was my go to book whilst studying IR. Kennan in my opinion was The last of the great American foreign policy architects its a pity they no equivalent today.

[@alvin8391]

Understanding the postwar and pre-NATO years of the relationship between the US and ths USSR requires understanding of the deep hostility of the "West", from the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rise of the Communist Party of Russia. Only the post WW1 war-fatigue prevented a concerted effort to overturn the Revolution by the West. Combined with the formation in 1942 of the US Grand Strategy towards world hegemony, a peaceful coexistence post-WW2 with the USSR of Stalin - or with any other nation that insisted on pursuing its sovereign future, the PRC - was not possible. Stalin had to insure that Russia's western border would be with friendly regimes, especially because the West was not interested in joining with Russia in a common security arrangement after WW2, as Stalin wished. Instead of neutralizing Germany after the 1945 victory, the West insisted on a Germany aligned militarily with it. Thus Germany became divided and the rest of Europe with it. The Council on Foreign Relations and its adherents represent the view of postwar Europe from the West's side of that division and the ambitions of the planners of the US's Grand Strategy, of which George Kennan was a principal.

[@Thom3748]

The sound has separated from the video. Can this be fixed? It's distracting.

[@GH-oi2jf]

There is nothing to see. Just listen to it.

[@hardware199]

27:28 It was not Boutros-Ghali but Anwar Sadat.

[@kurtflorida]

You have the wrong decade

[@GH-oi2jf]

Prime Minister of Egypt 1908-1910.

[@janjantimalsina1465]

👍

[@macrosense]

This got off awkwardly with so many "uhhhhs"

[@colorist_tommy4247]

the basic of politics is
THERE IS NO PERMANENT ENEMY
there is no permanent friend.
ONLY a die hard racist can come out with something as wild and audacious like Kennan did.

[@faisalal-qassem3758]

"Guy said thing me no like, so now me not listen to anything else he say. Grug say right make might"
Seriously get over yourself. Brainlets like you do nothing but get us into trouble because you refuse to listen to people more intelligent and wiser than you because they fail to pass your ideological purity test.