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COLD WAR Essay Research Paper Less than (стр. 2 из 2)

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.