By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
We bring to the attention of our readers the analysis of George F. Kennan (1948) which constitutes the foreign policy cornerstone of the “‘Truman doctrine.”
These documents have set the groundwork. They have a direct bearing on US foreign policy and military doctrine under the Biden Administration, specifically with regard to Germany and the European Union which are currently the object of a U.S. sponsored Act of “Economic Warfare”.
What is of significance is that the threats directed against Germany and the EU, emanating from the Biden White House, were formulated under the “Truman Doctrine” at the very outset of the post-war era. According to George Kennan:
“To achieve such a federation [EU] would be much easier if Germany were partitioned, or drastically decentralized, and if the component parts could be brought separately into the European union.”
The military occupation of western Germany may have to go on for a long time. We may even have to be prepared to see it become a quasi-permanent feature of the European scene
In the long run there can be only three possibilities for the future of western and central Europe. One is German domination. Another is Russian domination. The third is a federated Europe, into which the parts of Germany are absorbed but in which the influence of the other countries is sufficient to hold Germany in her place.
The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better” (George Kennan, emphasis added)
“Straight power concepts” are now designated by the U.S State Department and the media as “the rules-based order”.
Introduction
Today’s US-NATO sponsored wars are part of a military and foreign policy agenda extending over a period of more than half a century.
In this regard, the NeoCons’ Project for the New American Century’s blueprint formulated in 2000 should be viewed as the culmination of a post-war agenda of military hegemony and global economic domination as initially formulated by the State Department in 1948 at the outset of the Cold War.
What these 1948 State department documents reveal (see below in Annex) is continuity in US foreign policy from “Containment” during the Cold War to today’s doctrine of “Pre-emptive War”.
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is in many regards a continuation of the Truman Doctrine, namely a hegemonic “long war” waged by US-NATO at a global level. Military actions are to be implemented simultaneously in different regions of the world (as outlined in the PNAC):
“Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”
Needless to say, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush, Barack Obama [and now Joe Biden] have been involved in carrying out this hegemonic blueprint for global domination, which the Pentagon calls the “Long War”.
Kennan’s writings point to the importance of building a dominant Anglo-American alliance based on “good relations between our country and [the] British Empire”. In today’s world, this alliance largely characterizes the military axis between Washington and London, which plays a dominant role inside NATO to the detriment of Washington’s European allies. Kennan also pointed to the inclusion of Canada in the Anglo-American alliance, a policy which today has largely been implemented (under NAFTA and the integration of military command structures). Canada was viewed as a go between the US and Britain, as a means for the US to also exert its influence in Britain’s colones, which later became part of the Commonwealth.
Of significance, Kennan underscores the importance of preventing the development of continental European powers (e.g. Germany and France) which could compete with the Anglo-American axis:
Today, standing at the end rather than the beginning of this half-century, some of us see certain fundamental elements on which we suspect that American security has rested. We can see that our security has been dependent throughout much of our history on the position of Britain; that Canada, in particular, has been a useful and indispensable hostage to good relations between our country and British Empire; and that Britain’s position, in turn, has depended on the maintenance of a balance of power on the European Continent.
Thus it was essential to us, as it was to Britain, that no single Continental land power should come to dominate the entire Eurasian land mass. Our interest has lain rather in the maintenance of some sort of stable balance among the powers of the interior, in order that none of them should effect the subjugation of the others, conquer the seafaring fringes of the land mass, become a great sea power as well as land power, shatter the position of England, and enter—as in these circumstances it certainly would—on an overseas expansion hostile to ourselves and supported by the immense resources of the interior of Europe and Asia. Seeing these things, we can understand that we have had a stake in the prosperity and independence of the peripheral powers of Europe and Asia: those countries whose gazes were oriented outward, across the seas, rather than inward to the conquest of power on land. (George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1951)
Today the World is at crossroads of the most serious crisis in World history. The US and its allies have launched a military adventure which threatens the future of humanity. This roadmap of global warfare has its historical roots in the 1948 Truman doctrine.
Of relevance in relation to recent developments in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Kennan explicitly pointed in his 1948 State Department brief, to “a policy of containment of Germany, within Western Europe”. What Kennan’s observations suggest is that the US should be supportive of a European Project only inasmuch as it supports US hegemonic interests.
In this regard, we recall that the Franco -German alliance largely prevailed prior to the onslaught of the March 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq, to which both France and Germany were opposed.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a turning point. The election of pro-US political leaders (President Sarkozy in France and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany) was conducive to a weakening of national sovereignty, leading to the demise of the Franco-German alliance.
Today both Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel are taking their orders directly from Washington.
Moreover, in today’s context, the US is committed to preventing Germany and France from developing political and economic relations with Russia, which in the eyes of Washington would undermine America’s hegemonic ambitions in the European Union.
“Federated Europe”
It would appear that a blueprint of a European Union predicated on “a weakened Germany” had been envisaged by the US State Department in the late 1940s.
Writing in 1948, Kennan had envisaged the formation of a “Federated Europe” which would based on the strengthening of the dominant Anglo-American alliance between Britain and the US , the weakening of Germany as a European power and the exclusion of Russia.
According to Kennan:
In the long run there can be only three possibilities for the future of western and central Europe. One is German domination. Another is Russian domination. The third is a federated Europe, into which the parts of Germany are absorbed but in which the influence of the other countries is sufficient to hold Germany in her place.
If there is no real European federation and if Germany is restored as a strong and independent country, we must expect another attempt at German domination. If there is no real European federation and if Germany is not restored as a strong and independent country, we invite Russian domination, for an unorganized Western Europe cannot indefinitely oppose an organized Eastern Europe. The only reasonably hopeful possibility for avoiding one of these two evils is some form of federation in western and central Europe.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the US at the outset of the Cold did not favor the reunification of Germany. Quite the opposite: Germany was to remain partitioned:
Our dilemma today lies in the fact that whereas a European federation would be by all odds the best solution from the standpoint of U.S. interests, the Germans are poorly prepared for it. To achieve such a federation would be much easier if Germany were partitioned, or drastically decentralized, and if the component parts could be brought separately into the European union. To bring a unified Germany, or even a unified western Germany, into such a union would be much more difficult: for it would still over-weigh the other components, in many respects.
With regard to Asia including China and India, Kennan hints to to the importance of not only articulating a military solution but in maintaining the people of Asia in a state of poverty. What is also put forth is a strategy of creating divisions as well as ensuring that Asian countries do not establish a relationship with the Soviet Union which would hinder US hegemonic interests.
“The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better”:
Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction.
For these reasons, we must observe great restraint in our attitude toward the Far Eastern areas. The peoples of Asia and of the Pacific area are going to go ahead, whatever we do, with the development of their political forms and mutual interrelationships in their own way. This process cannot be a liberal or peaceful one. The greatest of the Asiatic peoples—the Chinese and the Indians—have not yet even made a beginning at the solution of the basic demographic problem involved in the relationship between their food supply and their birth rate. Until they find some solution to this problem, further hunger, distress, and violence are inevitable. All of the Asiatic peoples are faced with the necessity for evolving new forms of life to conform to the impact of modern technology. This process of adaptation will also be long and violent. It is not only possible, but probable, that in the course of this process many peoples will fall, for varying periods, under the influence of Moscow, whose ideology has a greater lure for such peoples, and probably greater reality, than anything we could oppose to it. All this, too, is probably unavoidable; and we could not hope to combat it without the diversion of a far greater portion of our national effort than our people would ever willingly concede to such a purpose.
In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to “be liked” or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers’ keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. (emphasis added)
From the outset of the Cold War era, Washington was also intent upon weakening the United Nations. According to Kennan:
The initial build-up of the UN in U.S. public opinion was so tremendous that it is possibly true, as is frequently alleged, that we have no choice but to make it the cornerstone of our policy in this post-hostilities period. Occasionally, it has served a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part. (emphasis added)
Michel Chossudovsky, September 7, 2014, May 17, 2023 [updated from December 2003)
ANNEX
Further references including original archives:
FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES 1945-1950 Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment
at http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/intel/
Foreign Relations Series (Kennedy through Nixon)
at http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/history/frus.html
For a list of Kennan’s writings at Princeton University library:
http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/finding_aids/kennan/index.html
See also The United States’ Global Military Crusade (1945-2003) by Eric Waddell, Global Outlook, Issue 6, Winter 2003
17 May 2023
Source: www.globalresearch.ca