Kennan & the U S -Soviet debate:
Hehir, J Bryan
Church/world watch Kennan & the U.S.-Soviet debate J. Bryan Hehir THE LAST two years manifest a striking shift in public attitudes and policy debate concerning U.S. defense policy. President...
...It is the nuclear content of the superpower relationship which has most absorbed Kennan's public interest in the last few years...
...My purpose here is not to provide a review of the book but to highlight two chapters, along with the Atlantic article, as indications of the quality and precision needed by all sides in the nuclear debate...
...Ever since the presumed "failure of detente," U.S...
...One of the founders of the "realist" approach to international politics goes beyond realism but not away from it in this essay...
...It is perhaps too much to ask diplomats subject to daily pressures to think and act with the cool clarity of a Kennan essay, but it is not too much to hope that the American public can be influenced by this lucid interpretation of why the Soviets act as they do and how we can Church/world watch best shape the future of superpower relations in a nuclear world...
...The transition from Mr...
...Writing in The New Republic in successive weeks, Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that an open moment exists for the U.S...
...They too must correlate their proposals for reversing the nuclear arms race with a coherent account of U.S.-Soviet relations...
...The value of this dual interpretation is not simply the light it throws on the past...
...In this chapter and in the Atlantic article Kennan performs a dual service...
...He recognizes that realism, biblical or political, calls for both new and drastic steps to reverse the arms race and a new effort to shape U.S.-Soviet relations which can provide the setting for arms control...
...If one asks how 1983 will compare with 1982, my guess is that we will see the nuclear debate put in its political context, i.e., the shape of U.S.-Soviet relations...
...But this most recent book provides a new dimension of Kennan's view on the nuclear age...
...McNamara, Bundy, and Smith to advocate a profound review of NATO policy...
...In its final chapter Kennan presents "A Christian's View of the Arms Race.'' He acknowledges this is the first time he has publicly addressed the nuclear question from a faith perspective, but the depth and sensitivity of his effort shows that the moral-religious dimensions of the nuclear question have been an abiding interest of this historian-diplomat for a long time...
...The Reagan administration's position vis-a-vis the Soviets is sufficiently well known but it is not clear that the "early Reagan" position of unrelenting attack on the Soviets will be adequate to create the atmosphere needed to obtain cooperation on the arms control proposals the president has put on the table in Geneva...
...Given the crucial choices before us in superpower relations, others will hope that the richness of Kennan's recent contributions will only intensify his involvement in our foreign policy debate...
...For the administration, therefore, the question is not paying attention to U.S.-Soviet relations but doing it with a different style and substance...
...policy has again been shaped by an interpretation of Soviet moves that lacks the nuance and perspective found in both of Kennan's historical essays...
...The reasons for this glowing endorsement from a demanding critic are not hard to identify...
...to strike a deal with the Soviets on a series of issues, while Adam Ulam contended that the possibilities for movement were severely limited by the nature of the Soviet system...
...Brezhnev to Mr...
...While not retreating at all from his determination to increase military spending in spite of deficits and a depression-prone economy, the president did move in 1982 to pursue arms control in the START and INF negotiations at Geneva...
...Andropov has generated a series of essays in the press about the present state of U.S.-Soviet relations and future possibilities for change...
...The relationship of the political context of the nuclear arms race and its strategic context takes on new significance with the change of leadership in the Soviet Union...
...This collection of Kennan's essays over the past decade, along with a new essay in the 125th anniversary issue of The Atlantic (November 1982), provides a standard of excellence against which both the administration and its critics can be tested on their views of U.S.-Soviet relations...
...The argument is not a decisive case against the nuclear critics, but it does require their attention...
...He blends his professional knowledge with a modestly stated but powerfully argued religious case to provide a searing critique of the arms race...
...Kennan says in the introduction to his book that he hopes it will mark the end of an epoch in his life, spanning thirty-five years of writing on American policy toward the Soviet Union...
...From those who have forced a change in the administration's priorities on arms control by making the nuclear question a central political issue in the United States, the agenda is different...
...The chapter entitled, "The American-Soviet Relationship: A Retrospective View," has been described by Professor Stanley Hoffman in the following way: "I know of no better recapitulation of the Soviet-American relationship from the Russian Revolution to the present...
...Budget deficits began to force reevaluation of the administration's policy of protecting defense spending from cuts...
...J. BRYAN hehir J. BRYAN hehir...
...Critics of the arms control constituency often make the case that the latter are fascinated by weaponry and strategic doctrine but not sufficiently attuned to the political context within which the arms race exists...
...And one of the key elements in the president's program - the MX - was dealt a severe setback in the waning days of the lame-duck Congress...
...Both the administration and its arms control critics must face the question but from different perspectives...
...Signifi-cantsigns of change appeared in the last year...
...tions in the Atomic Age (Pantheon, $13.95, 207 pp...
...A constituency for arms control and disarmament re-emerged...
...He provides from his extensive historical, personal, and linguistic knowledge of the Soviet Union an account of the driving forces of Soviet conduct since 1917 and at the same time he sympathetically but incisively accounts for American reaction and, at times, over-reaction to Soviet moves...
...The contending prescriptions could be catalogued at length, but I use them only as a background to highlight the appearance at this critical moment of George Kennan's new book, The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Rela...
...President Reagan, elected in 1980 on a platform espousing a revitalized American defense program, had little if any opposition in 1981 as he placed arms control on the back burner and successfully sought from Congress a substantial long-term increase in defense spending...
...Kennan's efforts will stand as the norm against which other efforts will be tested...
...He has made concrete practical proposals for deep cuts in the nuclear arsenals of both powers and collaborated with Messrs...
Vol. 110 • January 1983 • No. 2
