This essay analyzes George Kennan’s Sources of Soviet Conduct and the policy of containment pursued by the United States in order to counter the motives of the Soviet Union.
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Running head: GEORGE KENNAN’S SOURCES OF SOVIET CONDUCT George Kennan’s Sources of Soviet Conduct Name of the Student Name of the University Author Note
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1GEORGE KENNAN’S SOURCES OF SOVIET CONDUCT The end of the Second World War marked a lot of changes in the world. One of the major changes that was brought about was the division of the world in to two powerful blocs, one headed by the United States of America and the other by the Soviet Union. This division was based on their allegiance to their politicalideology which was capitalism and socialism respectively. This essay seeks to understand this conflicting differences based on George Kennan’s Sources of Soviet Conduct. It tries to analyze the aims of the Soviet regime, the various methods by which they hope to achieve such hopes and the policy of containment pursued by the United States in order to counter the motives of the Soviet Union. George Kennan was a diplomat of the United States posted in the Soviet Union. As a result, he was well aware of the various designs of both the countries after the end of the Second World War. Kennan was of the belief that the main objective of the Soviet Union was to spread its ideals of communism and socialism to all other parts of the world, especially within the countries of the Eastern Europe. This was deemed to be necessary because the Second World War brought about a lot of devastation and misery for all the concerned nation states. However, it was the poorer countries of Eastern Europe who has to face the brunt of the problem as they did not have enough finances to rebuild themselves after the war. Thus, the aim of the Soviet Union proved to be achievable by exploiting the financial needs of such countries. The Soviet Union sought to achieve this objective through the mechanism of instituting certain changes in its policies. Kennan opined that the Soviet Union has considerable time in its hand in order to bring about the necessary changes which would lead to the propagation of the idea of socialism throughout the different parts of the world. The region of Soviet Union sought to achieve this by the way of destructing the capitalist ideals of the United States. In order to prevent this, Kenna advocated the institution of the policy of containment. The policy of containment was one of the strategic designs of the United States which sought to confine the extension of the power and influence of the Soviet Union on the other parts of the county. Kenna stated that the Kremlin, the institution of power within the Soviet Union was quite flexible in nature. As a result, the United States should try to negotiate with the state leaders of the Soviet Union and persuade them to maintain their prestige and honor in the world forum. In this the United States would be successful in their policy of containment. In conclusion, it can be observed that George Kennan sought to provide a structural frame work for solving the problems of capitalism and socialism that exist in the two countries. He wanted the two nations to solve the ideological differences in an amicable manner.