The Russian Question, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

I learned a lot about Russian history reading this book. It's divided into two parts.

The first is an essay written in 1994, just a few years after the fall of the Soviet government, in which Solzhenitsyn poses an important question to the Russian people: To be or not to be? Meaning: Are the Russian people going to take this opportunity to fulfill their potential given the lessons of their history or not?  And he gives a quick summary of the successes and failures of the various Tsars from the start of the Romanov dynasty in the 1600's to Nicholas II and on through Soviet times.  He shows how the Tsars hampered Russia's progress by their ineptitude in foreign affairs, their propensity to get involved in European quarrels unnecessarily, coupled with a very centralized power structure and a lack of understanding of how to encourage development of their already huge territory and its people. Then the Soviets made things worse by sacrificing the country and its people to a deadly ideology that it was their goal to spread abroad.

The second part is a speech Solzhenitsyn delivered in 1993 to the International Philosophical Society in Liechtenstein about the need to reclaim moral clarity, the application of moral standards in politics, instead of utilitarian or legalistic ones, and, in personal life, the need for self restraint and the recognition that there is more to life than material well being.  Many of these themes he also covers in The 1978 Harvard Commencement Address.

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.