American Diplomacy, by George F. Kennan

This book consists of six Walgreen lectures Kennan gave in the 1950's about the major wars the U.S. participated in, including the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II, and his observations about American foreign policy during that time.  Also included is the famous "Long Telegram," which he sent to the State Department during his service as an ambassador.  It is a concise explanation of the ideology of the Soviet Union, their motivations, and how best to deal with them--apparently given as the answer to the question of why the Soviets were becoming less and less cooperative after World War II.

One of the main ideas behind the book is the warning that moral considerations should not be relied upon too much when determining foreign policy or entering wars.  He favors the approach more common in the 19th century and earlier of pursuing national interests because it limits military engagements to the accomplishment of well defined goals, rather than the unconditional surrender and regime change that characterized 20th century wars.  He got a (figurative) black eye for this idea from Alexander Solzhenitsyn during the latter's 1978 Harvard Commencement Address.  While the narrow pursuit of national interest made sense during the 19th century, when there was a strong moral consensus among the nations, it may be inadequate when dealing with totalitarian regimes whose moral outlook (or lack of one) is very different from one's own and lies at the very root of the war.

Astolphe de Custine and His Russia, by George F. Kennan

This is an excellent review of Astolphe de Custine's <i>Russia in 1839</i> and the times in which it was written. I read it right after <i>Russia in 1839</i> and it was very helpful as I knew nothing about Custine and it was the first book of his I had read.  George Kennan gives a very well-balanced amount of information in his book such that the reader gets a thorough overview of the context in which <i>Russia in 1839</i> was written.

Included is biographical information about the author, a French aristocrat who had lived through the French Revolution as a child, the social milieu in which he lived in Paris, as well as a short exposition of where Russia was in its history when Custine visited, and the reaction to his book in France and in Russia when it came out in the 1840's.

Kennan was a historian who served briefly as U.S. ambassador to the USSR during the Cold War and his thoughts about what Custine observed--reactionary traits that were on their way out under the 19th century Czars but that came back with a vengeance under the Soviets--are chilling.

Also interesting is Kennan's comparison of <i>Russia in 1839</i> with Alexis de Tocqueville's <i>Democracy in America</i>. The two authors were contemporaries, both keen observers, both liberal-minded French aristocrats, and between them they made prophetic speculations about the two countries that emerged as superpowers in the century that followed.