Kennan's Legacy

George F. Kennan

On 24 February 1948, a report Review of Current Trends [in] U.S. Foreign Policy was issued by the Policy Planning Staff of the U.S. government. It was anonymous but almost certainly written solely by George F. Kennan, an American diplomat who was, at this time, at the peak of his influence.

Kennan's world view was, broadly, that the US should use political and economic means to contain Soviet influence until such time as the regime fell apart from within. In this, he represented a middle ground between hawks who advocated military containment (and ended up dominating policy during the Cold War) and doves who believed that the US and USSR could negotiate successfully.

Top secret at the time, Kennan's report illuminates the underlying attitudes of the policy makers who shaped the post-war world. For me, the essential moment comes in section VII. Far East:

Review of Current Trends [in] U.S. Foreign Policy (1948), section VII. Far East, excerpt

Even by the standards of his time Kennan was an outspoken racist, declaring that "I have a soft spot in my mind for apartheid" and suggesting that miscegenation between Europeans, Indians and African slaves was the root cause of Latin America's economic backwardness. In his final years, Kennan embraced militant nativism, writing of how American culture was becoming "recklessly trashed in favor of a polyglot mix-mash".

However, it's Kennan's views on the Far East shown above that help explain much of what has happened since the 1940s. Any systems thinker (or anyone with basic common sense) will see how an inherently unbalanced ecosystem must face sustainability challenges. This applies whether the imbalance is within or across national boundaries. In recent years, extensive research in economics, anthropology, and archaeology has shown how societies from the Bronze Age onwards have been destabilized by inequality.

This is because inequality causes debt to escalate, which in turn leads to debt bondage and concentration of wealth in oligarchs. Eventually, some oligarchs reach a level at which they can challenge state power. Their typical route is to cast themselves as populist saviours to gain mass support, then once they achieve power, use violent repression to keep it. People who did this in ancient times were called tyrants.

All this has, of course, obvious resonance today. Has nothing changed over the centuries?

One thing that may be new is the empowerment brought by digital technology. AI in particular offers access to information for all. Knowledge is power, so this could be a game changer for the little people.

There are some dependencies. First, AI must become trustworthy. Second, how will the little people use their power? If it is only in a race to themselves become tyrants, nothing will change. Instead, we need to recognise that a better world can only exist as a better world for all. In other words, we must use new trustworthy AI to build Supercommunities.