Is Cold War strategy relevant to dealing with Russia today?

Amid the violence and upheaval in the Ukraine, and the Russian response, a debate has broken out in Washington about the relevance of Cold War strategy. Whether it still should be relevant to viewing Russian actions and geopolitics?

It would be interesting to know what George Kennan might think about it. He was after all, the architect of America's cold war policy of containment and perhaps our greatest political and diplomatic strategist with respect to the Russia and the former Soviet Empire.

He was both a man of letters and a man of action. But his views, on domestic politics, and on modernity were far less prescient and far out of step with the changes taking place in America. In short, he was a complex man, the likes of which we seldom see in public life today.

He also kept a diary for almost 90 of this 101 years. University of Connecticut historian Frank Costigliola has edited those diaries into The Kennan Diaries.

My conversation with Frank Costigliola:

Hawk, Dove and Friendship

They were two of the Best and the Brightest. There 60 year friendship shaped the Cold War and American foreign policy.  Their story shows how the world is a better place and a safer place when the clash of idea and intellects, coupled with the bond of friendship, shapes the future.  In his dual biography of Paul Nitze and George Kennean, Nicholas Thompson, in his book The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, gives us two remarkable men whose public lives defined our 20th century foreign policy.  It's a lesson we need now!

My conversation with Nicolas Thompson:Powered by Podbean.com