Cold War
Cold War | The United States Should Contain Soviet Expansion
George F. Kennan was in charge of long-range planning for the State Department following World War II. In July 1947, having recently returned from the Soviet Union where he had worked at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Kennan published a letter, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” under the pseudonym Mr. X in the quarterly journal Foreign Affairs.
In the following viewpoint, excerpted from that letter, Kennan argues that a fundamental antagonism between communism and capitalism rule out any lasting cooperation with the Soviet Union; the Soviet Union is a rival, not a partner....
[The entire page is 2328 words long]
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- Introduction
-
From Allies to Enemies: The Origins of the Cold War
- Chapter 1 Preface
- The United States Should Seek Peace with the Soviet Union
- The United States Should Not Seek Peace with the Soviet Union
- The United States Should Contain Soviet Expansion
- The Soviet Union Should Contain U.S. Imperialism
- Soviet Expansion Policies Initiated the Cold War
- U.S. Containment Policies Initiated the Cold War
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Coexistence and Conflict
- Chapter 2 Preface
- The War in Korea Should Be Expanded
- The War in Korea Should Be Limited
- The Soviet Union Seeks Peaceful Coexistence with the United States
- The Soviet Union Does Not Seek Peaceful Coexistence with the United States
- The United States Could Have Won the War in Vietnam
- The United States Could Not Have Won the War in Vietnam
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From Détente to the Cold War’s End
- Chapter 3 Preface
- Détente Is a Constructive
- Détente Is a Flawed U.S. Policy
- The United States Must Develop a Defensive Weapons System to Prevent Nuclear War
- U.S. Development of a Defensive Weapons System Would Increase Nuclear Proliferation
- Ronald Reagan’s Policies Ended the Cold War
- Mikhail Gorbachev’s Policies Ended the Cold War
- Reflections: The Impact of the Cold War
- For Further Discussion
- Copyright
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