![]() ![]() The Soviet collapse was, to a large extent, a consequence of the containment strategy proposed by George Kennan, with the singularity that, when rereading today both that diplomatic letter and the article entitled “The source of Soviet conduct,” published a year later in Foreign Affairs, the clairvoyance displayed by the then young American chargé d’affaires continues to amaze. This year two anniversaries are remembered, the 75th of the writing of the Long Telegram and the 30th of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, two events closely related to each other. Recently, Josep Piqué wrote in Foreign Policy that “ the United States and the West urgently need a clear roadmap, a new ‘long telegram’ to face the challenge presented by China.” 1 The moment could not be more appropriate. In that sense, the allies of the United States and the world’s democracies also have to find out how to fit right into the new context. The objective is to ensure a geostrategic response model that allows peaceful coexistence and, at the same time, defends the interests and values of the world’s first democracy. However, as important as the commercial dimension is, the US strategy -necessary to manage in the medium and long term the inevitable tension in relations between the two superpowers- requires a complex and comprehensive design built on a novel core strategic concept. The new American perception of Chinese ambitions generated a first response, which manifested itself in the trade war declared on China by the Trump administration. Today, Americans are undoubtedly fully aware of the aspirations of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to contest its current world supremacy. From the diplomatic delegation of the United States in Moscow, Kennan wrote the famous and long telegram in which the central idea of the later design of the policy of the United States to defeat the USSR is exposed. After World War II, the Americans stopped perceiving the USSR as an ally against Nazism when they discovered its totalitarian nature as a threat to democracy and the United States of America. George Kennan is known as the father of the US containment strategy against the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Keywords: Long Telegram, Kennan, USSR, Containment, China, US, EU, Strategy, Security. Their separate states no longer have sufficient geopolitical critical mass to be the owners of their own destiny. Whatever the line of action chosen by Washington, the only alternative that invites hope in Europe is a brave bet on a federal European Union. This situation causes serious dilemmas for the security strategies of Western nations. When rereading it, the clairvoyance displayed by the young American diplomat is still amazing.Īt present, another similar document would be needed to meet the challenge presented by a revisionist China. Kennan’s famous “long telegram”, which inspired the containment response to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is a lesson in how to strategize in the face of geopolitical challenges of great magnitude and complexity. ![]()
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