Kennan as an Unheard Prophet, or Why Trump Was Late

Trump wants to climb on the shoulders of the greats
The inauguration of the 47th president found me working on a continuation of a series of articles devoted to Afghanistan, related to the activities of its outstanding ruler, Mohammed Daoud, who, using harsh methods, tore his homeland from the shackles of the Middle Ages and transformed it into a developed country by Middle Eastern and Central Asian standards – from the point of view of political geography, it belongs to both regions, given its involvement in the confrontation with Pakistan and its presence in the sphere of geopolitical interests of Iran, as well as given the attention of Daoud and his predecessor, the reformer Amanullah Khan, to the successful experience of modernizing Turkey.
Immersion in the material prompted me to turn to reflections on the origins of Trump’s foreign policy strategy, the essence of which is to set Russia against China and draw it into the camp of his allies.
What is the connection with Afghanistan in the Daoud era? In the 1970s, he was an important factor in the transformation of the British-Russian into the Soviet-American Great Game, some of whose participants have crossed the century mark in this century, taking with them invaluable diplomatic experience.
Trump has a difficult political legacy and difficult, almost impossible, tasks on the international stage.
We are talking about the deceased mastodons of American geopolitics: D. Kennan, G. Kissinger, D. Carter, D. Shultz. And Z. Brzezinski and R. McNamara have moved to another world both at a respectable age and in the current century. D. Matlock and W. Perry are approaching their centenary.
Yes, Carter was not a mastodon, but after all, his rule coincided with epochal events. The peak of Kennan's diplomatic career fell on the 1940s, but his ideas, reflected in the famous "Long Telegram", formed the basis of the "Truman Doctrine", which, albeit in an adjusted form, lasted until the end of the Soviet-American phase of the Cold War.
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness or NATO as a Threat to the USA
Let's start with Kennan. And not because he was the architect of the Cold War concept, but because he became, perhaps, the main critic of B. Clinton after its end, for his decision to expand NATO to the East. The short-sighted president, with the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, saw an opportunity to dance with impunity on the bones of the collapsed bipolar world.

Clinton's Unheard Prophet George Kennan - Architect of the Cold War, Opponent of NATO Expansion to the East
The latter almost shocked Kennan, who wrote in 1997:
Such a decision could fuel nationalist, anti-Western and militaristic sentiments in Russian public opinion and lead its foreign policy in a direction that is decidedly unfavorable to us. Last but not least, it would make it much more difficult, if not impossible, for the State Duma to ratify the START II treaty and take further steps to reduce nuclear weapons.
Didn't he prophesy? But who and when listened to prophets? Clinton didn't listen. In vain. Ten years before V.V. Putin's Munich speech, Kennan warned:
Another former ambassador to our country, Matlock, also expressed skepticism about the expansion of the alliance, as he wrote to S. Talbott, the deputy secretary of state who held the opposite point of view:
In a speech to Congress, Matlock once made an original comparison of the concept of NATO expansion with the attempt of pre-war France:
The White House did not listen, although both Kennan and Matlock, like no one else, were familiar with the mood of the Russian elite and society.
Warning from a repentant hawk
McNamara, a hawk in the 1960s, also opposed NATO expansion, which he wrote to Clinton in 1997. In fact, in the last quarter of the last century, McNamara revised his views, as evidenced by the expressive title of his book: “Through Mistakes and Catastrophes.”

McNamara's Epiphany
This is largely why the former minister had previously spoken out against SDI and unsuccessfully tried to persuade George W. Bush not to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, because he did not want his compatriots to experience what he had experienced on the shaky threshold of World War III, during the Cuban Missile Crisis:
And so, at the end of the 20th century, old McNamara sees how another president is once again beginning to bring the nuclear apocalypse closer, and warns him, as does another former defense minister, Perry. But Yeltsin's "friend Bill" was not interested in veterans.
Underestimating China
The position of Kissinger and Brzezinski was more complex. In 1994, the former spoke in favor of admitting the Visegrad Four countries – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary – into the alliance; but he expressed concerns about the revival of what he called Russian expansionism.
In other words: what Kennan warned about directly, Kissinger spoke in a convoluted manner, perhaps experiencing vague concerns about the revival in the Russian political establishment of the imperial idea, now formulated in the concept of the “Russian World”.
At the same time, already in this century, the former Secretary of State considered it important to involve China in resolving the conflict in Ukraine – a direct consequence of NATO expansion.
In its modern form, it is the merit of Kissinger, who secretly visited Beijing in 1971 and organized the meeting between Mao Zedong and R. Nixon that took place the following year, opening the red gates of the Celestial Empire to American investments, without which Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and the current appearance of the country would have been unthinkable.

Kissinger, in a conversation with Mao, lays the foundation for China's future power, which Trump, half a century later, will try to destroy
And now comes the key. Let me quote Matlock again, returning to his thoughts on the Third Republic on the eve of World War II:
The threat to the geopolitical interests of the United States was expressed in the rapprochement between Russia and China, caused, among other things, by NATO’s deafness and its unwillingness to hear the rumble of the growing tectonic processes in post-Soviet society, which Kennan and Matlock warned about.
Washington received alarming signals already at the end of the last century.
The first was the idea voiced in Delhi by the then head of government E.M. Primakov about the creation of a strategic triangle "Russia-India-China". Of course, at that time the concept was unrealizable due to the significant contradictions between India and China, but it, like the departure from Kozyrevshchina, became a response to the trampling of Russia's interests through NATO expansion and evidence of changes in the Kremlin's political establishment.
Yes, Brzezinski – I didn’t mention his attitude to NATO expansion. He approved. But, like Kissinger, he considered it necessary to turn Russia into a harmless and loyal partner. A pragmatist, but he didn’t calculate, unlike Kennan and Matlock with Perry, the reaction of the Russian elite to the expansion of the alliance and the severity of its response.
Regarding Russia and China: Brzezinski considered their rapprochement unlikely, being more concerned about the possible prospects of a Russian-Indian alliance, which could lead to a weakening of the US strategic position in Central Asia.
The second signal was Yeltsin’s famous statement at the Beijing meeting with the Chairman of the People’s Republic of China Jiang Zemin in December 1999:

In 1999, in China, Yeltsin may have seen the contours of a new geopolitical reality
Apparently, Yeltsin had already decided to resign and therefore could have opposed the US. And perhaps it was then, in Beijing, that the foundations of a strategy were laid aimed at both bringing the two countries closer together and containing the US, which by that time had trampled the norms of international law with its aggression against Yugoslavia.
Russia was changing, although the neoliberals' positions in both government and the media were still strong. Yeltsin's Beijing speech and Primakov's U-turn over the Atlantic were seen by the US as nothing more than a revolt. And a rapprochement between Russia and China, specifically on anti-American grounds, was not considered likely.
A partial justification for the blunder by overseas analysts can be called the fact that the rapprochement between the two countries, which directly affects the geopolitical interests of the United States, began after Xi Jinping came to power in China in 2013.
The main thing for our topic is that the Americans themselves indirectly laid the foundation for rapprochement in the mid-1990s, ignoring Moscow’s interests and underestimating the positions of the statists in the Kremlin political establishment, which they thought was tamed, and the oligarchy they had fed.
And if we reason from the standpoint of cynicism inherent in politics, then the White House in the 1990s had every chance to grow an elite loyal to itself – a new generation with the mentality of E. Gaidar, B. Nemtsov, I. Khakamada and even A. Kozyrev and M. Kasyanov, to develop in post-Soviet society the cult of consumption born back in the 1970s-1980s – remember the black marketeer wonderfully played by Igor Yasulovich from “The Most Charming and Attractive”? – maintaining the welfare of society at a relatively high level, but conducting from overseas a government dependent on various kinds of handouts.
This would provide American corporations with access to the post-Soviet market – let us recall Boeing, which almost destroyed the Russian aviation industry – and overall control over the economy, including the military-industrial complex, and consequently, over the Armed Forces. The Russia-NATO “partnership” program adopted in 1995, the subordination of our contingent to the latter’s command in Bosnia, aren’t these steps in this direction?
Almost becoming the "Sick Man of Europe"
In short, in the mid-1990s, the White House could have launched the process of turning Russia into an analogue of the Ottoman Empire of the last quarter of the XNUMXth century, whose ruling class was dependent on Great Britain, which consistently advocated for preserving the integrity of the “sick man of Europe.”

It's no longer a secret what was behind the handshake
And in this context, if we think in terms of the logic of American strategic interests, NATO’s expansion to the east turned out to be unnecessary.
Fortunately for us, the American establishment of the 1990s did not have its own W. Gladstone and B. Disraeli, capable of calculating the consequences of steps in the international arena.
And Kissinger also believed that Russia-USA-China relations would be built within the framework of the triangle concept he had once formulated:
In the Kremlin, in his opinion, "cannot afford to fall out with the West to the point of surrendering to China's mercy".
Interestingly, Brzezinski said essentially the same thing:
The triangle concept formulated by Kissinger, if you look at it through the eyes of Washington, is certainly correct, but in the 21st century it has failed.
Why We Overslept or The Illusion of the End of History
Why did no one from the current entourage of Yeltsin’s “friend Bill” warn about the strategic danger, the essence of which is the rapprochement between Russia, China and Iran, as a response to NATO’s expansion to the East?
In my opinion, there are three reasons.
First: the fading of interest in Sovietology by the American establishment and, as a consequence, a reduction in funding for relevant research, although, I believe, analytical work on the processes taking place within the Russian elite could have adjusted the White House’s foreign policy course, forcing it to abandon NATO expansion, but realizing its interests through agreements directly with the countries of Eastern Europe.
The second reason follows directly from the first: the conviction of some intellectuals at the end stories and the triumph of the neoliberal idea, which was reflected in the much-discussed work of F. Fukuyama.
In this kind of situation, the formation of a unipolar world under the auspices of the United States seemed like a fait accompli.

Fukuyama was too hasty in ending the story
The third reason is anthropological in nature and concerns the crisis of the elites as a whole – American, Russian, European. Psychologists rather than historians should talk about the reasons. But, looking at B. Johnson, L. Truss, O. Scholz, D. Bush Jr., B. Obama, the already mentioned Russian neoliberals and comparing them with the Cold War politicians – M. Thatcher, C. de Gaulle, J. d'Estaing, G. Schmidt – it is impossible to deny the crisis.
And as a summary: unnoticed in the euphoria of the momentary victory in the Cold War, the threat to the overseas establishment was growing in the East in the form of China, with whose cheap goods the Americans flooded the market, burying their own industrial power.
In this situation, Trump, who has taken a course towards reindustrialization, is trying to turn history back, correcting Clinton’s strategic mistake, and at the same time the half-century-old mistake of Kissinger and Nixon, and return Russia to the camp of his allies, and China to the ranks of secondary powers.
How? It is clear that the US will not leave Eastern Europe, but Trump has already expressed his intention to transform relations with Brussels, demanding that the Euro-satellites increase their defense spending, naming a figure that is too high for them and focusing on the East.
Back to political realism
Trump is not original, since the US adopted a strategy of transferring its geopolitical efforts to the Asia-Pacific region back in the Obama administration, in 2011. However, subsequent events in Europe have adjusted the White House's foreign policy course.
And now, more than a decade later, its current owner does not hide his desire to put a bridle on China and return the US to its former industrial greatness. This cannot be done, firstly, without ending the conflict in Ukraine, and on terms favorable to Moscow, and secondly, without establishing relations with it in defiance of the Russian-Chinese dialogue.
We see how, thirty years later, Trump is trying to correct Clinton's mistake. Yes, NATO in Eastern Europe is a fait accompli, but it is possible to neutralize its threat to Russia's security by demilitarizing Ukraine, as well as to leave Europe to the Europeans and, if we think in Trump's logic, to deal with China.
But it is unlikely that this will work. Yes, Trump's strategy resembles the Kissinger triangle, but it is being implemented in some primitive form. What can Trump offer us: formal denazification of Ukraine with the replacement of an awl with soap - Zelensky with another creature of the USA? And for this we break off relations with China, refusing to defend strategic interests in Ukraine? Ridiculous.

Although indirect, it is also a consequence of Clinton’s decision in 1994
Trump is late. Clinton, who ignored Kennon in 1994, unknowingly launched a process that became irreversible in 2025, heralding a change in world leadership and the possible decline of US power. What will be Russia's place in the new world? Time will tell.
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