'If diplomacy is not pursued and if unconditional surrender is unattainable, the only other alternative is catastrophe'
Were Cold War strategist and American diplomat George F. Kennan alive today, as the world marks the grim one-year anniversary of the war that began in Feb. 2022 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he wouldn't hesitate to warn about a possible third world war if the conflict continues.
"He definitely would be worried about that, and his focus would be trying to prevent that," Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Frank Costigliola says. "He would stress that this is a scary situation and, based on his reactions to previous conflicts, particularly when the United States and Russia were involved directly or by proxy, he would emphasize that the United States needs to push both sides to negotiations."
Kennan, who died in 2005 at the age of 101, spent considerable time in Russia as an American diplomat in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, learning to speak the language even better than Joseph Stalin, who never lost his Georgian accent. His 1946 "Long Telegram" from Russia had a major role in shaping U.S. policy in the postwar world.
Costigliola says that while Kennan was at first an influential voice in the instigation of the Cold War, he spent the next 50 years trying to ease relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. He tried to communicate to U.S. officials that, while Russia was a difficult country to contend with, the U.S. needed to understand the Russian perspective - if only to co-exist peacefully.
"The war in Ukraine is a horrible mess, and there's no justification for the war, but Kennan would emphasize that there is an explanation for its origin. Understanding that history is a prerequisite for successful diplomacy to prevail," says Costigliola, who teaches in the history department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and last month published both the biography "Kennan: A Life between Worlds" (Princeton University Press) and the essay "Kennan's Warning on Ukraine" in Foreign Affairs magazine.
