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Reflections on Containment

Henry A. Kissinger
May/June 1994
Summary -- 

George Kennan’s "X" article, published in these pages more than 45 years ago, outlined for the United States a "doctrine of perpetual struggle" against communist ideology. The "containment" strategy optimistically assigned the American people the task of redeeming their Soviet rival. As long as the Kremlin remained wedded to its ideology, negotiation was futile. The struggle could only end with the collapse and conversion of the Soviet system. Critics assailed the policy as too global, reactive and moralistic for a nation possessed of no authority to undertake a crusade. Containment nonetheless guided American policy, and Kennan came closest, and earliest, in his prediction of the fate that would befall Soviet power.

Henry A. Kissinger was National Security Adviser and Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations. This essay is adapted from his eleventh book, Diplomacy, published by Simon and Schuster, with whose permission this essay appears.

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