political systems of western countries.?
Kennan came to the conclusion that Soviet policy aimed primarily at
strengthening the relative power of the USSR in the international environment.
Of far greater importance, the Soviet rulers would attempt to accomplish their
goals through the ?total destruction of rival power.? To this end they would
use every direct or indirect means, and they would do everything in their power,
so as to undermine and infiltrate the political, social and moral edifice of
western states, by exploiting the contradictions inherent in the capitalist
system
Kennan painted a very bleak picture of the Soviet Union. In summing up his
view, at the beginning of the fifth and last section of the Telegram, he
underlined emphatically that the U.S. had to confront ?a political force
committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent
modus vivendi, that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of
our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the
international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure.?
Under these urgent circumstances, the overriding task of the U.S. grand
strategy, Kennan argued, should be the stopping of Soviet expansion.
In closing his telegram and recommending a general outline of instructions
rather than some straightforwardly applicable steps for action. Kennan cautioned
the U.S. in their dealing with the Soviet Union. He asked American officials to
approach with objectivity, thoroughness and calmness. He was convinced that it
was within the capabilities of the U.S. to solve the problem without direct
confrontation, or a ?general military conflict? for two basic reasons:
first, the soviet leaders, unlike Hitler, were ?neither schematic nor
adventurist,? in that sense they were extremely ?sensitive to the logic of
force?; second, the Soviet Union continued to lag economically far away behind
the West. As a consequence, the interests of the U.S., Kennan went on in his
argument, could best be served by building a healthy and vigorous American
society, on the one hand, and by conceiving and ?exporting? to other free
nations its ?positive and constructive? image of the world, on the other.
Kennan?s Long Telegram presented a completely opposite view of U.S.- Soviet
relations than did NSC-68. They reflected two diametrically opposed perceptions
both of the nature of world politics and the U.S.-Soviet security dilemma. The
Long Telegram was concerned more with the impact of the distribution of power on
the U.S.-Soviet relations. It regarded that there would be a possibility of
mutual gain from cooperation with the Soviets. In this sense, the Long Telegram
maintained that the most effective way of controlling the Soviet Union was by
exercising indirect power upon the Soviet Union, in order to get them to do what
the U.S. wanted. NCS-68 focused on the military dimension of power. It asserted
that an enhancement of Soviet strength would inevitably decrease U.S. power and,
hence, the U.S.-Soviet conflict was only a ?zero-sum? political and military
interaction. Against the Soviet Union it advocated the use of hard power,
exclusively associated with the manipulation of tangible and material means,
such as threats, so as to compel the Soviet Union to acquiesce to the will of
the United States.