BOOK REVIEWS

American Diplomacy, 1900-1950. BY GEORGE F. KENNAN. (Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press. 1951. Pp. ix, 146. $2.75.)

This is not a book in the ordinary sense, but a collection of lectures and
magazine articles which, it is quite apparent, were not intended as parts of a
single book. There is much that is interesting and stimulating, including infor-
mation regarding matters on which the author should be an authority; but it
is disappointing that we do not have more of a rounded and considered book
on foreign policy from George Kennan after his years of experience as a diplo-
mat and global planner, followed as they were by a period of detached contem-
plation.
His lectures on our diplomacy in the first fifty years of this century add up
to the net conclusion that it was all wrong. He ends his lectures with a warning
against any multilateral, legalistic or moralistic foolishness such as the United
Nations efforts or kindred ones, and makes a plea for complete reliance on
old-fashioned diplomacy. By diplomacy he apparently means the dictionary
concept, "Dexterity or artfulness in securing advantages without arousing
hostility; address or tact in conduct of affairs." His lectures do not explain
how this new country, forced by circumstances to take an increasingly impor-
tant place in the world in the last half-century, and blundering at every step,
became the most powerful nation on earth during that period, and wound up
with nearly one-half the world's income and the highest standard of living
of any nation in history. Nor does he explain our increasing state of insecurity
and uncertainty during the period he was in charge of policy planning. Was
it the failure of our diplomats to carry out the plans, or was it because we
did not have good plans?
In one of the two magazine articles on Russia Kennan sets forth the con-
tainment theory which is proving impossible to maintain; in the other article
he concludes that if we are good enough and wise enough at home, every-
thing may come out all right. It is fortunate that he does not show his hand
too clearly to the Russians, who will be studying these articles with a micro-
scope to see how he will use "dexterity or artfulness without arousing hostility"
in his dealings with them as our Ambassador.
I read this book on the way to Paris to serve as a delegate to the United
Nations and learned much that prepared me for some of the disappointments
and disillusionments which I experienced in the UN. I understand, however,
that Mr. Kennan has not had any experience in multilateral activities such as
those of the United Nations. I doubt if he understands the vigorous bilateral
activities that are necessary before and during a session of the United Nations
Assembly or if he appreciates the absolute necessity for planning and par-
ticipating in multilateral operations that are far more efficient and effective
225
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than those we now have. I was impressed at Paris with the lack of cohesion
between our bilateral and our multilateral efforts. Did someone plan it that
way?
As a Republican member of the loyal opposition in Congress, I agree with
many of the criticisms Kennan makes of our recent foreign policy. Some of his
analyses, which are new to me, are informative and provocative. He has not,
however, given the whole history, or a balanced outline, of American diplomacy
in the last fifty years. In any case, George Kennan, with his fine mind and
unparalleled opportunity for observation, can write a better book about how
we got here and where we go from here. I hope he does.
JOHN M. VORYS.
U. S. House of Representatives.
II
Hardly more than a decade ago, our foreign policy was still engulfed in
sterile debate between the advocates of isolationism and internationalism.
In that unhappy period of polarized public opinion, a detached and caustic
inquiry, such as Kennan's, would have been largely wasted; the effort would
have gone unnoticed or, at worst, the judgments would have been distorted in
support of one extreme or the other. That the same cannot be said today is a
welcome indication that we are emerging from adolescence in matters relating
to foreign policy.
The balance-of-power point of view, which is that employed by Kennan
in evaluating American policy of the past fifty years, is one which, through
the misfortune of being identified with militarism, arouses a certain antagonism.
Yet Kennan's evaluation of the record and his prescription for American
policy in relation to the Soviet Union (contained in two articles appearing
originally in Foreign Affairs and reprinted as an appendix to the present
volume) do not place him in the get-tough-and-no-nonsense school. Seeing
nothing of positive value, but only chaos compounded, as the result of two
world wars, he finds no remedy in a third. Kennan clearly perceives and de-
scribes with penetrating effect the conspiratorial character of the Soviet regime.
He would not, however, challenge it directly, but would rely on inner corrosion,
and more particularly on the crisis of leadership after the death of Stalin, to
bring about a more tolerable situation. Containment, yes; and defense against
the lashings of the Russian giant in the throes of internal crisis. But nothing
on our side which invites another repetition of Armageddon.
The implication in Kennan's position is that to use legal and moral principle
as the chief determinant of foreign policy is an unwise and dangerous thing,
for justice is never more elusive than when made a direct object of policy.
The objective should be, not moral excellence, but an equilibrium of forces.
If a critic were to pronounce this amoral, or even, perhaps, immoral, Ken-
nan's reply would be that it is enough for the United States to pass judg-
ment on its own motives, keeping them free of undue self-regard, without
basing its relations with others on an estimate of their goodness or badness.
 BOOK HEVIEWS 227

As a case in point, Kennan cites at length American advocacy of the open

door and the integrity of China. Serving no important material interest of
the United States, it was a moral judgment of the actions of the Western
Powers and Japan in the face of a condition in China which did not permit of
hands-off; it was a pronouncement, moreover, which we were content to make
with no intention of backing up. A Far Eastern policy guided less by senti-
mentality and with more regard for power realities might, Kennan suggests,
have avoided war with Japan—or at least a prosecution of the war such as
created a vacuum for the Soviet Union to fill.
The First World War too called for a policy designed, not to punish and
crush the offender against law and morality, but to restore equilibrium in a
Europe blindly bent on self destruction. It was just such a policy, Kennan
might have pointed out, which House sought to promote. It was, of course,
the object, or, at least, would have been the effect, of Wilson's endeavor to
achieve peace without victory. Had such an objective been clearly defined
and consistently pursued, Kennan suggests that the following might have
resulted:
you could have refrained from . . . picturing your effort as a crusade, kept open your
lines of negotiation to the enemy, declined to break up his empires and overthrow his
political system, avoided commitments to the extremist war aims of your allies, retained
your freedom of action, exploited your bargaining power flexibly with a view to bringing its
full weight to bear at the crucial moments in order to achieve the termination of hostilities
with a minimum prejudice to the future stability of the Continent.
Kennan is alive to the criticism that he is reconstructing history on the
basis of only one factor—the American—in a highly complex equation, and
he endeavors to meet it. Mainly, however, he is concerned with the objection
that American public opinion, given to judging international politics in the
same moral and legal framework employed in a democratic context at home,
is not readily adaptable to a diplomacy of maneuver and moderation. He is
prepared, in fact, to concede that his prescribed policy for the First World
War was not "within the realm of practical possibility from the standpoint of
domestic realities." But history, he insists, "does not forgive us our national
mistakes because they are explicable in terms of our domestic politics."
Pointing out that the margin for error is narrower than ever before, he is
seeking the lessons of experience.
Kennan does not believe that public opinion and the ballot, however success-
ful in a democratic setting, can be expected to bridge the chasms that exist
between peoples of widely differing cultures and economies. It follows that
the art of diplomacy, although it has been made more difficult by the mass
organization and mass opinion which characterize modern politics, has not
been outmoded. The values of democracy must be preserved, but if it was
democracy which "stopped us from being more effective than we were [in the
conduct of our policy in the First World War] . . . let us recognize it and meas-
ure the full seriousness of it—and find something to do about it."
Kennan offers an empirical way of thinking about international politics
228 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW

which, eschewing ideological constructions, is based on searching analysis of

actual experience. This point of view came naturally to the aristocrats who
conducted British policy in the nineteenth century. That a professional diplo-
mat should look with nostalgia on that worthy example of his art is, of course,
understandable. But in an influential official of the world's most powerful
government, it is also reassuring.
EDWARD H. BUEHRIG.
Indiana University.
Ill
"The basic concepts underlying the conduct of the external relations of the
United States," which the organizer of the Policy Planning Staff of the Depart-
ment of State sought to identify in these historical studies, are not too clear
when he is through. A neat, incisive style enables him to stud his pages with
gems of political prescience, but no counterpart of the "fundamental principles"
of July 16, 1937, or even the "guiding principles" of the President of October
27, 1945, emerges from these six lectures and two reprints from Foreign Affairs.
The lectures analyze the episodes of three wars, a policy commitment and
one situation, with further observations on "Diplomacy in the Modern World."
In seeking the theoretical foundation of our foreign policy, the author seems
to this reviewer to have unduly disregarded some of the traditional policies of
American national interest that instinctively inform and control action.
Mr. Kennan finds that each of his chosen episodes exhibits American
"mistakes," sometimes on our own, sometimes by misapprehension of the
international situation. Typically, he finds that we entered the Spanish war
for subjective and emotional reasons, conducted it badly on plans of dubious
origin, and ended it with the impulsive acquisition of foreign territory. But
we should not reproach our forebears, "for we are poor judges of their trials
and tribulations." (There are similar hedges in other lectures.) Here there is
no mention that national safety and Caribbean order were involved and no
inkling that events forced us belatedly into a role as a "great power," which
we unwittingly were. Mr. Kennan implies that the "anti-imperialists" of the
time were more nearly right; if so, one who knew them can testify that, aside
from diligent vocality, their influence was approximately nil.
To this reviewer the least convincing lecture is "Mr. Hippisley and the
Open Door." The author relies on Griswold's embellishment of Tyler Den-
nett's pet piece of research and disregards the fact that freedom of trade got
into American blood as early as the Boston Tea Party. The idea was behind
opposition to the British navigation acts and to Napoleon's paper blockade
and found expression in the most-favored-nation clause. Hippisley called
Rockhill's attention to conditions which concerned us, and Hay's note of
September 6, 1899, expressed an old American thesis and was aimed at an
evolving situation in the American interest. The territorial integrity circular
of July 3, 1900, was quite separate, despite Mr. Kennan's historians. John
Hay was neither a dope nor a dupe, though both his originality and success
became exaggerated.
 BOOK HEVIEWS 229

The concepts of foreign policy are abstract; the conduct of foreign policy is a
concrete application of those ideas to specific conditions comprised of a series
of situations. Mr. Kennan's technique of adding up the accumulation of historic
factors as a basis for drawing a moral vivifies a lecture but is not a happy way
to apply policy theorems to a body of facts. A situation in foreign relations
emerges as a large problem on which a decision on some specific phase of it
must be taken immediately. Theoretically, that decision can go toward any
degree of a circle's 360; actually, it must accord with the intrinsic policy attitude
of the foreign office and the public atmosphere of the moment. The first decision
gives direction to the next; the actions of other states and events modify
intentions and possibilities. The end product is a conglomeration of such fixed
points, measurably different from any preconceived determination. To appraise
the result as a unit in the vacuum of subsequent conceptions may be history,
but it is an analysis of policy outside of a controlling context. Mr. Kennan
vicariously recognizes this pattern, but does not apply it.
The most serious fault of our policy, Mr. Kennan says, has been the "legal-
istic-moralistic approach to international problems." It is true that Americans
inject moral values into everything, and Mr. Kennan neatly illustrates the
fact. In his episodes he appraises political acts as mistakes or failures and
offers unguaranteed alternatives by way of morals to the story. As a matter of
fact, a moral obsession is an inextricable part of a democratic curiosity or
responsibility in foreign affairs, of which few people at the time know the
details or the relevant facts. Mr. Kennan pays just tribute to the dependa-
bility of the people of a democracy on foreign-policy questions over the long
term, but finds the short-term record of public opinion going astray into areas
of emotionalism and subjectivity of little service as guides for national action.
In sundry places he recognizes that the moral reaction is a short-term phe-
nomenon when the public perceives a national interest. Having no seasoned
knowledge of the situation and lacking accurate facts even more than official-
dom, a citizen has no recourse first-off but to express his concern in the com-
mon currency of moral terms. Those who confine themselves to a smattering
of facts seldom get away from the strictly moral criterion in their opinions,
which, being simpler, travels lightly and goes farther than more informed and
fully balanced judgment. The overtones of American political morality
become tame in the presence of knowledge and comprehension, both of which
take time to disseminate. I do not gather from Mr. Kennan's frequent wry
references to morality that he really fears that it interferes with the national
interests, or even runs counter to them.
Moralism is more of an effort to identify the national interest in the absence
of knowledge of the factual problem than a disregard of national interest.
Mr. Kennan does not stress its effect in providing an escape clause from re-
sponsibility, the avoidance of which in the 1900-50 period was an American
characteristic. We were a "great power" in spite of ourselves and resented the
position when we had to act our size. In the early 20's international statistics
demonstrated that the United States (7 per cent of the world's area and 6
per cent of its population) alone accounted for 40 per cent of both the world's
230 THE AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE REVIEW

production and its consumption; ever since, the element of responsibility (whether
we participated or held aloof) has been a condition of national interest. It was
not until we linked power and responsibility in preparing for the Charter of the
United Nations that we accepted fate.
Mr. Kennan thinks that "the legalistic approach to international affairs"
ignores political problems and the deeper sources of international instability.
Since the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, Americans have been emphatic
in their policy, including their constitutional system, in having a "government
of laws and not of men," and no policy planning is likely to overturn the
idea within foreseeable decades. But here Mr. Kennan surely confuses "legal-
ism" with law that sets standards of action, and it would seem to be the busi-
ness of diplomacy as a method to apply abstract principles to concrete problems.
Mr. Kennan's last lecture gives a definite impression of a concept of policy
pitting one segment of power against another, for the handling of which law
is said to be too inflexible and in which the diversity of states precludes the
effectiveness of an international juridical regime. Nowhere in these lectures
does one find any consideration of the economic factor or a reasoned exami-
nation of the multilateral frame of standards in which states now live.
American Diplomacy, 1900-1950 is a notable commentary, full of the wisdom
of experience. Mr. Kennan's final advice to abandon the delusion of "total
victory" in the conduct of foreign relations and to pursue modestly the national
interest, with decent motives, without rancor or arrogance points the way he
would have us go. Deus vult.
DENYS P. MYERS.*
Washington D. C.
* The writer is alone responsible for the views expressed in the foregoing review.

Power and Society; A Framework for Political Inquiry. BY HAROLD D. LASSWELL

AND ABRAHAM KAPLAN. (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1950. Pp.
xxiv, 295. $4.00.)
This book is the result of the wartime collaboration between the most emi-
nent disciple of the Chicago school of political science and one of the most
promising younger adherents of logical positivism. It is, to quote the authors,
"a by-product of the Research Project on Wartime Communication" (p. ix),
carried on in the Library of Congress. The project concerned itself primarily
with the problem of mass communication. The participants in this project had
to review the then-current state of knowledge of political communication; the
present book contains the results of that review.
When the book was written in 1945, it had a limited pragmatic purpose;
it was a tool for a specific practical task. Yet in 1950, when the book was
published, the authors endowed it with a significance far transcending its
original modest purpose. "This is a book of political theory, not an analysis
of the contemporary or impending political situation" (p. ix). With this
monumental sentence the book starts out. The authors do not fail to make