In 2005 we saw the 101st anniversary of the birth, and the death, of George Kennan, widely acknowledged as the principal architect of containment, the doctrine that guided U.S. foreign policy for roughly forty years of the Cold War. Containment--in Kennan's formulation, "a commitment to countering the Soviet Union wherever it encroached upon the interests of a peaceful and stable world"--implicitly and correctly rejected two dangerous alternatives: appeasement of the Soviet and communist threat on the one hand (that would have led to a global diminution of security, freedom and prosperity) and direct confrontation on the other (all too dangerous in a nuclear era). Containment not only largely frustrated Soviet and communist expansion, it contributed to creating a context in which communism ceased to constitute either a geopolitical or ideological challenge to America. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989; the Soviet Union itself imploded two years later.
Containment could not, however, survive its own success. What is needed now is a foreign policy doctrine for the post-11/9 (November 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down) and the post-9/11 world.
A guiding principle--an intellectual framework--furnishes policymakers with a compass to define strategies and determine priorities, which in turn helps shape decisions affecting long-term investments in military forces, assistance programs and intelligence and diplomatic assets. A doctrine also helps prepare the public for what commitments and sacrifices may be required--and sends signals to other governments, groups and individuals (friend and foe alike) about what the country is striving to seek or prevent in the world.
