Grande estratégia e idiossincrasias corporativas: uma reflexão a partir da experiência de George Kennan - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

 2409. “Grande estratégia e idiossincrasias corporativas: uma reflexão baseada em George Kennan”, Brasília, 14 julho 2012, 7 p. Considerações sobre posturas na carreira diplomática, com base em trecho da biografia do diplomata e historiador americano por John Lewis Gaddis: George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York: The Penguin Press, 2011). Postado no blog Diplomatizzando (http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/uma-reflexao-baseada-em-george-kennan.html). Postado novamente no Diplomatizzando em 2016 (link: http://www.diplomatizzando.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/george-kennan-era-um-contrarianista.html) e em 2018 (https://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2018/11/grande-estrategia-e-idiossincrasias.html).

Grande estratégia e idiossincrasias corporativas:

uma reflexão a partir da experiência de George Kennan

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Lendo a biografia de John Lewis Gaddis, sobre o grande diplomata e historiador americano, que dominou a segunda metade do século XX, George F. Kennan: An American Life (New York: The Penguin Press, 2011), deparo-me com um trecho, relativo ao ano de 1943, quando Kennan era encarregado de negócios na legação dos Estados Unidos em Lisboa; negociações eram conduzidas na capital portuguesa para assegurar o uso, por forças americanas, dos Açores, como plataforma absolutamente indispensável para conduzir as operações europeias da Segunda Guerra Mundial em sua vertente norte-atlântica:
“[George Kennan] began to develop... a new sense of responsibility within the duties assigned to him: at several points over the next few years Kennan took risks that jeopardized his own Foreign Service career because he thought that the national interest demanded that he do so. Obliged to operate for the first time at the level of grand strategy, he found the rules oh his profession falling short. He chose, successfully but dangerously, to violate them.” [Loc 3387 of 18204 Kindle edition,  Amazon].
Gaddis informa ainda, na sequência dessa passagem, as circunstâncias em que Kennan decidiu assumir vários riscos em sua carreira, violando deliberadamente várias regras do jogo, tal como definidas por instituições excessivamente burocráticas ou muito conservadoras, quanto o Departamento de Estado ou o comando das Forças Armadas, como se pode depreender desta transcrição adicional:
“During the Azores base negotiations [com o próprio Primeiro-Ministro português Antonio de Oliveira Salazar], Kennan violated at least four rules, any one of which could have him sacked from the Foreign Service. He exceeded his instructions in a conversation with a foreign head of government. He refused to carry out a presidential order. He lied, to another government, about the position of his own. And he went over the heads of his superiors in the State Department – as well as the secretary of war and the Joint Chiefs of Staff – to make direct appeal to the White House.” (Loc 3436 of 18204 Kindle edition,  Amazon).

Estas passagens chamaram-me obviamente a atenção, ou “struck a cord on me”, como diria o próprio Gaddis, provavelmente o maior historiador vivo da Guerra Fria e o único biógrafo autorizado de George Kennan. Explico por que, já que isso tem a ver com a mesma sensação de barreiras burocráticas e conservadoras, em assuntos que demandariam uma visão mais larga dos processos diplomáticos, que eu já enfrentei na carreira. Não querendo me comparar a George Kennan, possivelmente o maior especialista diplomático americano em assuntos russos que jamais existiu nos anais daquele serviço diplomático, mas eu também adquiri, ainda antes de ingressar no serviço diplomático, uma percepção histórica e estrutural de muitos dos temas que compõem, burocraticamente, a agenda diplomática corrente.
Tendo começado a estudar os assuntos brasileiros desde muito cedo – compulsando uma bibliografia de nível universitário, ou de pesquisa especializada, ainda quando estava em meio aos estudos do ciclo médio – desenvolvi provavelmente de maneira muito precoce um cuidado com a análise do contexto, dos precedentes históricos, e dos impactos estruturais ou implicações políticas de cada um dos problemas com que me deparava em minhas leituras ou pela leitura dos jornais de maior qualidade em suas edições dominicais (invariavelmente o velho jornal conservador O Estado de São Paulo, ainda quando discordasse profundamente de seus editoriais, que julgava representativos das opiniões da “classe dominante”). Foram anos, em meados da década de 1960, em que eu lia os grandes mestres da teoria social brasileira, entre eles os representantes da “escola paulista de Sociologia” – que pouco depois se tornaria minha alma mater, ao ter ingressado no curso de Ciências Sociais da Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas da USP – e através dos quais eu filtrava minhas reações aos editoriais “reacionários” do Estadão, combinando todas essas leituras para refletir sobre os caminhos do desenvolvimento econômico e político brasileiro, no quadro das crises contínuas que agitavam o período que se tinha iniciado com o golpe de 1964, e que eu imaginava combater pela via do socialismo e de um governo comprometido com a “ditadura do proletariado”.
Independentemente dessas ilusões e descaminhos ideológicos – que foram sendo corrigidos tão pronto eu deixei o país, no final de 1970, para conhecer o triste cenário do socialismo real do leste europeu e as nuances dos capitalismos realmente existentes na Europa, durante quase sete anos – eu adquiri, a partir desses hábitos juvenis de leitura, um sentido de abrangência analítica e de inserção contextual que me acompanharia pelo resto da vida, sobretudo no domínio profissional, quando ingressei na carreira diplomática, poucos meses depois de voltar da Europa em 1977. Mas o que isso quer dizer, no quadro desta seleção de trechos da biografia de Kennan por Lewis Gaddis? Explico-me agora mais detalhadamente.
Ingressei no Itamaraty ainda na era militar, quando ainda pensava em derrubar o regime, embora não mais pela via das armas e sim pela via da pressão democrática. Tampouco pretendia converter o Brasil em uma nova Cuba ou uma nova China, como talvez fosse a intenção em meados dos anos 1960; mas o modelo ainda seria algo bem próximo do socialismo democrático europeu, que eu julgava bem mais propenso a empreender a correção das tremendas injustiças sociais em vigor no Brasil, desde sempre, do que, alternativamente, a visão mais pró-mercado que não tenho hesitação em defender atualmente. Nessa época, eu ainda era obrigado a escrever artigos com algum nom de plume, já que minhas “convicções radicais” provavelmente chocariam meus colegas e superiores diplomáticos – que eu considerava todos alinhados ao regime – e chamariam a atenção dos órgãos de segurança, especialmente ativos naquela conjuntura, quando a repressão física tinha amainado, mas o controle de inteligência continuava atento a todas as manobras da oposição ao governo militar.
Tendo iniciado minha carreira no Itamaraty por uma divisão secundária, a do Leste Europeu (então todo ele dominado pela União Soviética), pude distinguir-me rapidamente em alguns trabalhos analíticos, inclusive porque, ademais dos boletins da Radio Free Europe e da Radio Liberty – ambas financiadas pela CIA, obviamente – que líamos na DE-II, eu possuía um conhecimento interno, se ouso dizer, sobre o funcionamento desses regimes autoritários, já que tinha militado na esquerda marxista durante tempo suficiente para aprender – e apreender – todos os trejeitos vocabulares e as muitas peculiaridades políticas do mundo comunista. Recordo-me, em todo caso, de uma informação que preparei sobre o quadro político no leste europeu, em especial sobre a situação da Polônia, no imediato seguimento, em 1978, da surpreendente eleição do cardeal Karol Wojtila como o novo papa, de nome João Paulo II. Ao que parece, minha análise abrangente das implicações dessa escolha para todo o leste europeu e para o poder comunista foi devidamente apreciada pelos meus superiores, para ascender ao conhecimento do Gabinete do ministro, o que constitui, no Itamaraty, uma marca de distinção a dividir os assuntos que permanecem na “senzala”—como sempre foram depreciativamente chamados os serviços setoriais das divisões, no Anexo – e os que ascendem ao conhecimento da Casa Grande, como se designavam, respeitosamente, os dois gabinetes do Palácio.
Não exatamente por esse episódio específico, mas talvez mais pelo meu jeito histórico-intelectual de interpretar cada iniciativa ou resposta do serviço diplomático brasileiro, em função de um contexto mais vasto, no tratamento dos assuntos da agenda corrente, fui sendo considerado um diplomata especial, ou diferente, talvez bizarro, em todo caso colocado num clube à parte, não necessariamente melhor, dessa tribo de elite dos servidores do Estado. De um lado, nunca tive que mendigar postos ou posições no curso da carreira, já que em geral recebia convites para servir em tal posto ou tal unidade da Secretaria de Estado; de outro lado, jamais me dediquei a “pescar” votos de colegas ou implorar apoio de chefes para ser promovido na escala funcional, o que ofenderia meus princípios pessoais, ou minha maneira de ser, mas que pode ter irritado muita gente da corporação.
Tampouco pedia permissão para escrever à minha maneira – e não naquele burocratês diplomático que tanto desprezo – ou sequer me desculpava por pensar de forma muito diferente da maior parte dos colegas ou mesmo dos superiores, e mais de uma vez ousei contestar opiniões de chefes em reuniões de coordenação, quando os fundamentos de minha posição me pareciam suficientemente sólidos para levantar o dedo e exclamar – algumas vezes na estupefação dos colegas e alguns superiores – uma frase do tipo: “Não é bem assim [Fulano]!” Acho que isso talvez não tenha ajudado no curso ulterior, ou superior, da carreira. Já ao ingressar na carreira, revoltei-me contra a exigência, que sempre julguei absurda – e anticonstitucional, em todo caso violadora dos direitos individuais, que invariavelmente coloco acima dos interesses do Estado –, de ter de pedir permissão às autoridades pertinentes para contrair matrimônio com minha esposa: um abuso e uma indignidade, a que meu espírito anarquista jamais consentiu por princípio. Numa etapa intermediária, cansado do ritual de ter de pedir permissão para publicar que fosse uma simples resenha de livro sobre temas da diplomacia, deixei de submeter textos à apreciação superior, e passei a publicar o que julgava apropriado e conveniente (ainda que exercendo algum grau de autocensura no que era cabível dizer de público sobre tão augusta Casa e tão distinguido Serviço Exterior).
De fato, se ouso julgar, agora, as características do serviço em prol do qual exerci meus talentos nas últimas três décadas e meia, eu diria que o Itamaraty tem uma cultura muito especial, em todo caso diferente das demais corporações a serviço do Estado. Confessadamente, eu nunca fui muito adepto das manias e trejeitos dos meus colegas diplomatas: trata-se de uma carreira ultra competitiva, com altas doses de autocontenção, marcada por dogmas de disciplina e hierarquia que nunca se encaixaram bem ao meu natural libertário, exigindo ainda certo enquadramento nos rituais internos para que essa competição seja bem sucedida no plano individual, ou seja, para que ela se reflita na progressão funcional, na atribuição de postos e outras distinções. Visivelmente, eu nunca pretendi me enquadrar no estilo de rigor. Sempre mantive meus hábitos de trabalho, em parte isolado, estudando e escrevendo, de outra parte falando com sinceridade aquilo que me parecia negativo do ponto de vista da pura racionalidade instrumental dos objetivos diplomáticos. Ainda que tal tipo de atitude possa suscitar admiração em certas áreas, acredito que essas não são as qualidades requeridas para se triunfar numa Casa que faz da obediência estrita aos superiores a pedra de toque para a inserção no inner circle dos premiados oficiais.
Tomando como base o que acima vai descrito, não tenho qualquer restrição mental em confessar que, em diversas ocasiões, dissenti das opiniões oficiais da Casa – ou seja, aprovadas em alguma instância superior – no tratamento de temas específicos ou na condução de algumas negociações para as quais eu me julgava especialmente preparado, em função, justamente, dos estudos que eu conduzia paralelamente à carreira, para aprofundar-me nos assuntos que me eram atribuídos. Uma atitude desse tipo não é fácil de ser assumida, quando se trata, não das preliminares para a formulação de uma posição negociadora, mas de instruções formais, consubstanciadas em telegrama da série, com base na qual a resposta invariável do diplomata obediente deve ser: “Cumpri instruções”, e o chefe do posto passa a relatar como ele se ateve fielmente às ordens emanadas da Santa Casa.
Pessoalmente, já passei por esse tipo de situação, envolvendo uma negociação internacional de um tratado multilateral. Tendo me ocupado do tema durante meses e meses, eu literalmente dominava o assunto, técnica e diplomaticamente, e as instruções formuladas em Brasília, de nítido corte tradicional, eram claramente inadequadas. Os argumentos que poderiam ser mobilizados em favor de teses diferentes ou alternativas, por mais racionais ou “probatórios” que sejam (com base numa análise histórica, nos dados da economia, numa visão de longo prazo), nem sempre são convincentes ou suficientes para “dobrar” o burocrata na outra ponta do processo ou até fazer com que a instituição como um todo se mova em outra direção. Esse tipo de situação pode ser terrível, pois aparentemente (ou concretamente) o diplomata em causa pode estar se colocando contra as instruções da sua instituição.
Não tive medo de fazê-lo, naquele momento preciso, assim como em outras circunstâncias posteriores. De certa forma, esse tipo de atitude me prejudicou, pois fiquei com fama de rebelde, de dissidente, de arrogante, de pretencioso “sabe-tudo” e outros qualificativos mais, que nem são do meu conhecimento. Se insisto em certas teses é, contudo, com base num estudo profundo das problemáticas das quais me é dado ocupar. Sou por excelência um estudioso compulsivo, e não costumo me dobrar a nenhum argumento de autoridade, e sim à autoridade do argumento. Numa casa “feudal”, como é o Itamaraty, isso é quase um crime de lesa-majestade.
Mas o assunto supera as atitudes individuais de um diplomata, para adentrar no terreno mais complicado das questões macro-políticas, ou se quisermos, no eterno debate sobre como interpretar o chamado “interesse nacional”, um conceito altamente difuso para permitir qualquer tipo de argumento não fundamentado ou especioso. Não vou tratar das bases epistemológicas do que, exatamente, constituiria o interesse nacional nos limites desta reflexão, mas vou tratar da questão no contexto da própria formação e educação dos diplomatas. Acredito, com base numa avaliação puramente subjetiva, que poucos diplomatas têm uma cultura econômica verdadeira, ou seja, o instrumental analítico de cunho histórico e econômico que poderia levá-los a analisar uma questão qualquer de política externa do ponto de vista daquilo que os economistas chamam de custo-oportunidade do capital, ou seja, a eficiência paretiana dos meios e fins, que não se restringe ao melhor emprego dos recursos, ou a um cálculo sobre o retorno dos investimentos, mas envolve todos os “fatores de produção” de um determinado assunto diplomático. Tudo, ou quase tudo, na diplomacia, é feito de forma muito politizada e, por vezes, de forma irracional, já que levando em conta circunstâncias imediatas e as preferências políticas de quem manda, não necessariamente os interesses de mais longo prazo da nação.
Teríamos inúmeros exemplos de decisões claramente absurdas, no contexto mais vasto das tradições diplomáticas brasileiras, tomadas em certo período, e que no entanto foram tomadas, ao arrepio de qualquer racionalidade administrativa ou mesmo política; eximo-me, por razões diversas, mas claramente compreensivas, de discorrer sobre elas neste momento. O fato é que, em momentos como esses, o ator em questão tem várias escolhas, todas elas difíceis: submeter-se passivamente a instruções que ele pode julgar prejudiciais ao país ou ao serviço, no contexto dos interesses de mais longo prazo; negar cumprimento e argumentar alternativamente ao que julga contrário a suas convicções ou avaliação do tema em apreço; afastar-se do processo, com prejuízo pessoal ou fricção funcional.
Minhas próprias atitudes sempre foram pautadas em função de minha trajetória habitual de estudos e de busca de coerência lógica no processo decisório, esforçando-me por manter minha indispensável integridade intelectual, em face de eventuais adversidades momentâneas, que sempre julgo devam ser afrontadas com serenidade e com a dignidade funcional que devem guiar o comportamento de membros de uma corporação como esta à qual pertenço. Em tempos difíceis de submissão a vocações autoritárias essas atitudes cobram um preço por vezes difícil em termos pessoais, mas a coerência e a honestidade na defesa de certos princípios, que reputamos mais elevados do que a acomodação servil, e a consciência de se estar defendendo causas mais altas do que as escolhas sectárias do momento constituem os prêmios mais gratificantes que se possa ter num itinerário de vida.
Vale persistir, como aliás demonstrou o próprio George Kennan, ao abandonar a carreira diplomática, para ingressar numa categoria à parte da história intelectual de seu país, como um grande pensador das relações internacionais dos Estados Unidos. Sem aspirar a tanto, e sem renunciar a uma carreira que me trouxe tantos benefícios intelectuais e pessoais, vou persistir na defesa da coerência com o livre pensamento mesmo nos tempos sombrios e tristes de um outro regime autoritário.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brasília, 2409: 14 de julho de 2012.
Postado no blog Diplomatizzando (http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com.br/2012/07/uma-reflexao-baseada-em-george-kennan.html).
Postado novamente no Diplomatizzando em 4/01/2016 (link: http://www.diplomatizzando.blogspot.com.br/2016/01/george-kennan-era-um-contrarianista.html).
Novamente postado no blog Diplomatizzando (https://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com/2018/11/grande-estrategia-e-idiossincrasias.html ).

George F. Kennan: an American Life, de John Lewis Gaddis - obras de George Kennan

 Estou relendo esta biografia de Kennan (2011), pelo grande historiador da Guerra Fria, John Lewis Gaddis.

Aproveitei e entrei na Wikipedia, para ter a relação serial de todos os livros do grande diplomata americano: 

Obras (em inglês)

• "X" (1947), «The Sources of Soviet Conduct», Foreign Affairs, ISSN 0015-7120, 25 (4): 566–582, JSTOR 20030065, doi:10.2307/20030065
• Kennan, George F. (1948), Policy Planning Study (PPS) 23, Washington D.C.
• Kennan, George F. (1951), American Diplomacy, 1900–1950, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, OCLC 466719
• Kennan, George F. (1954), Realities of American Foreign Policy, Princeton: Princeton University Press, OCLC 475829
• Kennan, George F. (1956), Russia Leaves the War, Princeton: Princeton University Press, OCLC 1106320
• Kennan, George F. (1956), "The Sisson Documents," Journal of Modern History v. 28 (June, 1956), 130–154
• Kennan, George F. (1958), The Decision to Intervene, Princeton: Princeton University Press, OCLC 1106303
• Kennan, George F. (1958), Russia, the Atom, and the West, New York: Harper, OCLC 394718
• Kennan, George F. (1961), Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, OCLC 253164
• Kennan, George F. (1967), Memoirs: 1925–1950, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, OCLC 484922.
• Kennan, George F. (1968), From Prague after Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938–1939, ISBN 0-691-05620-X, Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Kennan, George F. (1968), Democracy and the Student Left, ISBN 978-0-09-095070-6, Boston: Little, Brown and Company – via Internet Archive
• Kennan, George F. (1971), The Marquis de Custine and His "Russia in 1839", ISBN 0-691-05187-9, Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Kennan, George F. (1972), Memoirs: 1950–1963, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, OCLC 4047526
• Kennan, George F. (1978), The Cloud of Danger: Current Realities of American Foreign Policy, ISBN 0-09-132140-9, London: Hutchinson
• Kennan, George F. (1979), The Decline of Bismarck's European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890, ISBN 0-691-05282-4, Princeton: Princeton University Press
• Kennan, George F. (1982), The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age, ISBN 0-394-52946-4, New York: Pantheon Books
• Kennan, George F. (1984), The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War, ISBN 0-394-53494-8, New York: Pantheon Books
• Kennan, George F. (1989), Sketches from a Life, ISBN 0-394-57504-0, New York: Pantheon Books
• Kennan, George F. (1993), Around the Cragged Hill: A Personal and Political Philosophy, ISBN 0-393-31145-7, New York: W. W. Norton & Company
• Kennan, George F. (1996), At a Century's Ending: Reflections 1982–1995, ISBN 0-393-31609-2, New York: W. W. Norton & Company
• Kennan, George F. (2000), An American Family: The Kennans, the First Three Generations, ISBN 0-393-05034-3, New York: W. W. Norton & Company – via Internet Archive
• Kennan, George F. (2014), The Kennan Diaries, ISBN 978-0-393-07327-0, New York: W. W. Norton & Company

From: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_F._Kennan

NATO Expansion: A Grand Strategy? - John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University (H-Diplo)

First Note:  The essay that follows was originally prepared for the National Defense University symposium, “Strategy and the Formulation of National Security Policy,” Washington, D. C., October 7, 1997.  It was previously published in Survival as John Gaddis, “History, Grand Strategy and NATO Enlargement,” Survival 40:1 (1998): 145-151, DOI: 10.1093/survival/40.1.145.  © 1998 The International Institute for Strategic Studies, reproduced with permission.  It has been slightly revised for publication on H-Diplo and includes a new preface by the author.

H-Diplo Essay 417: Commentary Series on Putin’s War: NATO Expansion: A Grand Strategy? 

by George Fujii

H-Diplo Essay 417

15 March 2022

Commentary Series on Putin’s War: 

NATO Expansion: A Grand Strategy?^[1]

https://hdiplo.org/to/E417

Editor: Diane Labrosse | Production Editor: George Fujii

Essay by John Lewis Gaddis, Yale University

“Back Pre-Putin to the post-Putin Future.”

I’m teaching a seminar this semester on time travel and have assigned the 1985 film Back to the Future, made well before any of my students were born.  So it seemed somehow appropriate to get an e-mail, on the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, referencing a 1998 article of mine that, as my correspondent put it, “rings true today.”^[2]  I’d long since forgotten it and had to ask for a copy, which he kindly provided.

Two days later Diane Labrosse asked me to contribute to an H-Diplo symposium on the Russia-Ukraine war.  I didn’t have time to write anything new, I replied – teaching obligations are always a good excuse – but might she be interested in something old yet possibly relevant?  She said yes, hence what follows.

Prepared originally for a 1997 National Defense University conference, my article preceded, by two years, the surprise elevation of Vladimir V. Putin to the Russian presidency:  Boris Yeltsin, however precariously, still held that position.  It appeared in Survival shortly before the first stage of NATO expansion brought Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into the alliance.  It benefited from James M. Goldgeier’s preliminary research on that subject, but came out too early to draw on his 1999 book, Not Whether But When.  Nor of course could it have anticipated the now definitive scholarship of Mary Sarotte, reflected in her timely new book Not One Inch.^[3]  What I’d written in 1997/98 was for these reasons, like Yeltsin himself, precariously positioned.

I saw, upon reacquaintance with it, that I’d accepted the need for a post-Cold War security structure in central and eastern Europe, but that I’d questioned using NATO for that purpose in such a way as to exclude Russia.  That in no way justifies Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:  it’s more like criticizing the post-World War I settlement’s exclusion of Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia without in so doing defending Hitler’s subsequent annexations and aggressions.  Short-sightedness may prepare the way for atrocities, but that’s not the same thing as committing them.  

There is, however, no good reason for clinging to short-sightedness, as if it’s some stuffed security teddy bear, as new opportunities arise.  We’re on the verge of one now, I believe, for as Winston Churchill might have put it, rarely has such ruin been inflicted with such speed upon so many with such incompetence by one little man sitting at the end of a long table.   With luck we’ll have a chance soon, with the help of our allies, of Russia’s victims, and of a post-Putin Russia itself, to frame a new future.  It’s not too soon to begin thinking about what it might look like, and a good place to start might usefully be a reacquaintance with past paths not taken.   

*

**

Some principles of strategy are so basic that when stated they sound like platitudes:  treat former enemies magnanimously; do not take on unnecessary new ones; keep the big picture in view; balance ends and means; avoid emotion and isolation in making decisions; be willing to acknowledge error.  All fairly straightforward, one might think.  Who could object to them?

And yet -- consider the Clinton administration’s single most important foreign policy initiative:  the decision to expand NATO to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.  I would not want to be thought disrespectful toward a president whose policies I have generally supported.  But it does seem to me that the NATO enlargement decision manages to violate every oneof the strategic principles I have just mentioned.  That really takes some doing.

Perhaps that is why my normally contentious colleagues in the historical profession are in uncharacteristic agreement:  with remarkably few exceptions, they see the NATO expansion as ill-conceived, ill-timed, and above all ill-suited to the realities of the post-Cold War world.  Indeed I can recall no other moment, in my own experience as a practicing historian, at which there was less support, within our community, for an announced policy position.  

A significant gap has opened up between those who make grand strategy and those who reflect upon it:  on this issue at least, official and accumulated wisdom are pointing in very different directions.  I would like to focus here on how this has happened, and that brings me back to my list of basic principles for grand strategy.

First, the magnanimous treatment of defeated adversaries.  There are three great points of reference here – 1815-18, 1918-19, and 1945-48 – and historians are in general accord as to the lessons to be drawn from each of them.  They applaud the settlements of the Napoleonic Wars and of World War II because the victorious allies moved as quickly as possible to bring their vanquished adversaries – France in the first case, Germany and Japan in the second – back into the international system as full participants in postwar security structures.  

Historians tend to criticize (if not condemn) the World War I settlement precisely because it failed to do that for two of the most powerful states in Europe – Germany and Soviet Russia.  The resulting instability, they argue, paved the way for World War II.  It was not for nothing that Churchill, having personally witnessed two of these instances and having studied the third, chose as one of the “morals” of his great history of the Second World War:  “In Victory:  Magnanimity.”

That approach would seem all the more relevant to the fourth great case that now confronts us – the post-Cold War settlement.  The Soviet Union was never an actual military opponent, and the ‘victory’ of the United States finally came, not on the battlefield but as the result of the Kremlin leadership’s change of heart, and then of character, and then ultimately of system.  The use of force, very fortunately for all of us, was not even necessary. 

The process of rehabilitating this adversary – of transforming it from a revisionist or even revolutionary state to one prepared to accept the existing international order – began, thus, even before the Cold War ended.  It was as if the Germans and the Japanese, say at some point in 1943 or 1944, had suddenly laid down their arms, announced that they had seen the light, and begun for themselves the processes of disarmament, democratization, and economic reorganization for which their enemies had been fighting.

It is all the stranger, therefore, that the Clinton administration has chosen to respond to this most fortunate outcome of the Cold War, not by following the successful examples of 1815-18 or 1945-48, but by appearing, at least, to emulate the unfortunate precedent of 1918-19:  one that preserves, and even expands, a security structure left over from a conflict that has now ended, while excluding the former adversary from it.  If the United States could afford to be inclusive in dealing with its actual enemies Germany and Japan after World War II -- just as Napoleon’s conquerors were in dealing with France after 1815 -- then why is it now excluding a country that, throughout the Cold War, remained only a potential adversary?

The answer I have most often heard is that the Russians have no choice but to accept what the US has decided to do -- that having swallowed the loss of their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, the reunification of Germany, and the eventual breakup of the former Soviet Union itself, their only alternative with respect to the expansion of NATO is to gulp and swallow yet again.  The US, the victor, is free to impose upon them whatever settlement it chooses.

Not only is that view arrogant; it is also short-sighted, for it assumes that defeated adversaries have no choices.  And yet, even the Germans in 1945, as thoroughly vanquished an enemy as there has ever been, had alternatives:  they could have tilted toward either their Eastern or their Western occupiers.  The fact that they chose the West had a lot to do with American and British efforts to make their occupation policies as conciliatory as possible.  The Soviet Union’s failure to understand that need -- its inability to see that wholesale reparations removals and mass rapes were not likely to win it friends among the Germans -- did a good deal to determine the robustness of one postwar Germany, and the brittleness of the other.  The Germans had a choice, and they made it decisively. 

If the US could be that accommodating, in the post-World War II years, to the wishes of a country that had given rise to one of the most loathsome regimes in history but now lacked any further capacity to inflict damage, I find it difficult to understand why the Clinton administration has elected not to accommodate a country that has chosen to democratize itself, but still retains a considerable capacity to do harm.  By insisting on NATO expansion, it seems, the US is violating a second great principle of strategy, which is that one should never take on more enemies than necessary at any given moment. 

For Russia does indeed have a choice:  it is in the interesting position of being able to tilt one way or another in a strategic triangle that is likely to define the geopolitics of the early twenty-first century.  It can continue to align itself, as it has patiently done so far, with the United States and Western Europe.  Or it can do what the United States did a quarter century ago under the guidance of President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger:  it can tilt toward China.

Given the complementarity that exists between Russia’s capacity to export military technology and China’s ability to produce marketable consumer goods, there is nothing inherently implausible in this scenario -- indeed there is a good deal of logic in it.  It would not be the first time Russia and China had linked up out of concern, even if misguided, over American aggressiveness:  we know from Soviet and Chinese documents that this was precisely the reason behind the 1950 Sino-Soviet alliance.^[4]  And of course classical balance of power theory tells us that this is what we should expect to happen:  that if country A feels itself threatened by country B, it is apt to align itself with country C.  Which in this case is a country less likely even than Russia to see its interests as compatible with those of the United States.

That brings me to a third strategic principle that’s being violated here, which is the need to take a global and not just a regional perspective.  General George C. Marshall coined the term “theateritis,” during World War II, to refer to the tendency, among some of his military commanders, to see only the requirements of their own campaigns, not those of the war as a whole.  I am hardly alone in the view that the Clinton administration has succumbed to a kind of geopolitical theateritis:  as Richard Haass has pointed out, “in his second term, the first post-Cold War president has focused most of his foreign policy efforts on NATO, a child of the Cold War.”^[5]  

The temptation to do is certainly understandable.  NATO was the most impressive institutional success of the US during the Cold War, and it’s only natural to want to find some purpose for it in the post-Cold War era.  But does it fit its current needs?  Will US leaders really be able to say in years to come -- can they say now -- that military insecurity in the middle of Europe, the problem NATO was created to solve, was (is) the greatest one that now confronts the United States?  

The sources of insecurity in Europe these days seem, to me, to lie much more in the economic than the military realm:  disparities in living standards divide the continent now, not armies or ideologies.  But the European Union, the obvious instrument for dealing with these difficulties, has come down with its own form of theateritis, the single-minded push to achieve a common currency among its existing members by the end of this decade.  So it’s been left to NATO to try to reintegrate and stabilize Europe as a whole.  This is roughly comparable, I think, to using a monkey wrench to repair a computer.  The results will no doubt be striking, but perhaps not in ways we intend.  

I am fully aware that containing the Russians has never been NATO’s only role.  Its members quickly found it a useful instrument, as well, for restraining the growth of German power (by including the Germans, note, not excluding them); and for ensuring that the Americans themselves remained in Europe and did not revert to their old habits of isolationism.  “Mission creep” was not invented in Mogadishu.

But the likelihood of German aggression today seems about as remote as does that of an American withdrawal from the continent:  neither of these old fears from the late 1940s and early 1950s is even remotely credible now.  If in the effort to ward off these phantoms we should revive another specter from those years that is a real possibility -- a Sino-Russian alignment -- then future generations would have a good case for alleging “theateritis” on the part of our own.

Even if we should grant, though, for the sake of argument, that NATO expansion is, or should be, an urgent priority, there is yet another strategic principle that has been bypassed here, which has to do with providing the means to accomplish selected ends.  We all know the dangers of letting interests outstrip capabilities.  One would surely expect, therefore, that on as important a matter as this -- the designation of three additional countries in the center of Europe as vital to the defense of the United States -- those charged with organizing those defenses would have been consulted, and carefully listened to.

Perhaps I have missed something, but it is hard to find evidence that the Department of Defense, or the Joint Chiefs of Staff, played any significant role in making this decision.  The fact that US interests have been expanded but their budget has not been suggests that quite clearly.^[6]  It is true that the military were very much involved in the now-eclipsed Partnership for Peace.  But that initiative was to have included the Russians in a relationship with NATO as originally constituted.  It did not involve enlarging the alliance in such a way as to advertise the Russians’ exclusion.^[7]

One might conclude, from the administration’s failure to match military means with political ends, one of two things.  Either the countries the US is proposing to include within NATO are not in danger, in which case one wonders why it is then necessary to include them.  Or they are in danger, in which case it has yet to prepare adequately to protect them.  Either way, ends and means are misaligned. 

So where did the decision to enlarge NATO come from anyway?  The most authoritative study so far, that of Professor James Goldgeier, of George Washington University, singles out three individuals as having played key roles:  President Clinton himself, who got interested in the issue as the result of an impromptu conversation with Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa at the April, 1993, dedication of the Holocaust Museum in Washington;  former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, who kept the idea alive within the administration through the next year and a half;  and the redoubtable Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, who intervened at several critical moments in the fall of 1994 to inform others within the bureaucracy that NATO expansion was indeed official policy – thereby, or so it appears, making it so.^[8]

With almost no public or Congressional debate – and with remarkably little inter-agency consultation – a momentum built up behind something that seemed a good idea at the time to a few critically-placed individuals.  Why, though, did it seem a good idea?  This is where things get murky, for although we can more or less trace the process by which the decision was made, the reasoning of the principal decision-makers – since they chose not to articulate it – remains obscure.

To be sure, the Poles, Czechs and Hungarians badly wanted their role within the “new” Europe recognized, both symbolically and institutionally.  How did it happen, though, that the Americans responded so much more favorably and rapidly than the members of the European Union did?  The most frequent explanation I have heard is that the Clinton administration, recalling the West’s abandonment of these countries, first to German and then Soviet domination during the 1930s and 1940s, felt an emotional obligation to them.^[9]  

If so, the history behind that sentiment is pretty shaky.  The United States, after all, had no hand at all in the 1938 Munich agreement, and it could have challenged Soviet control of Eastern Europe after World War II only at the risk of World War III, which would hardly have liberated anybody.^[10]  Nor is it clear that the Czechs, the Poles, and the Hungarians suffered more during the past half century than did the people the US proposes to leave out -- the Slovaks, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Ukrainians, and even the Russians themselves -- all of whom were, in one way or another, victims of German and/or Soviet oppression.  

What we are seeing, then, is a kind of selective sentimentalism.  The historic plight of some peoples moves American leaders more than does that of others, despite the fact that they all have compelling claims as victims.  Emotionalism, but of a surprisingly elitist character, appears to be at work here.

One of the strongest lessons that has emerged from the new Soviet documentation on Cold War history has to do with the dangers of making emotionally-based decisions in isolation.  Joseph Stalin’s authorization to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung to invade South Korea, Nikita Khrushchev’s placement of missiles in Cuba, and Leonid Brezhnev’s decision to invade Afghanistan all took place because leaders at the top responded to events emotionally, and then acted without consulting their own subordinate experts.^[11]  Those who raised doubts were simply told that the decision had been made, and that it was too late to reconsider.

I do not want to be misunderstood here.  I am not claiming that decision-making in the Clinton administration replicates that within the former Soviet Union.  I am suggesting, though, that on NATO expansion emotions at the top appear to have combined with a disregard for advice coming up from below -- and that given what happened in the Soviet Union when decisions were made in this way, that pattern ought to set off alarm bells in our minds.  

Well, you may be right, people will say, in questioning the way the NATO enlargement decision was made.  Maybe it was not the best model of thoughtful, consultative, strategically-informed decision making.  But the decision’s been made, for better or for worse, and going back on it now -- especially having the Senate refuse to approve it -- would be a disaster far greater in its scope and consequences than any disasters NATO enlargement itself will bring.

This sounds to me rather like the refusal of the Titanic’s captain to cut his ship’s speed when he was informed there were icebergs ahead.  And that brings up a final principle of strategy, which is that consistency is a fine idea most of the time, but there are moments when it’s just plain irresponsible.

Only the historians will be able to say with any assurance whether this is one of them.  Their current mood, though, ought not to give the administration much comfort.  So is there anything that might yet be done to avoid the damage so many of us see lying ahead if the United States holds to its present course? 

It is not unknown for great nations -- even the United States -- to acknowledge mistakes publicly and change their policies.  President Ronald Reagan did it in Lebanon:  in 1983 that country’s security was one of the United States’ vital interests; in 1984 (after over 200 Marines had been killed there) it was no longer so.  The US certainly reversed course in Vietnam, although only after years of resisting that possibility.  Surely the Nixon-Kissinger opening to China was an acknowledgement that the long-time policy of isolating that country had been misguided.  John Foster Dulles once threatened an “agonizing reappraisal” of the United States’ whole policy toward Europe if the French did not approve the European Defense Community; they did not approve, Dulles did not reappraise, and the skies did not fall.  And, lest we forget, America’s entire containment strategy after World War II constituted an implicit acknowledgement of error in having believed, as US leaders had during the war, that the Soviet Union under Stalin could be a lasting peacetime ally.  Mistakes happen all the time, and governments usually find ways to survive them. 

In the case of NATO enlargement, though, an acknowledgement of error -- a reversal of course -- is not really necessary:  US leaders could resolve most of the problems their policy of selective enlargement has caused by acting upon the implied premises of their own argument, and enlarging the enlargement process.  They could say that NATO expansion is such a good idea that they think it unfair just to apply the benefits to the Czechs, Poles and Hungarians -- that it will open the alliance to the other East Europeans, and ultimately to the Russians themselves.

But that would totally change NATO’s character, its defenders will protest.  Precisely so -- NATO ought to change to meet the conditions of the new world in which it exists, otherwise it will wind up looking like the British royal family.  But there is no precedent for such a dramatic move, NATO’s advocates will insist.  Precisely not.  Including Russia now could hardly be as dramatic a step as it was to bring France back into the Concert of Europe as early as 1818, or to include Germany as a recipient of Marshall Plan aid as early as 1947.  But Russia is not yet a predictable, democratic state, NATO’s supporters will complain.  Precisely beside the point -- for neither were Greece and Turkey when they were admitted as NATO members, quite uncontroversially, way back in 1952.

There is here illustrated one more lesson from the past, which is that what people think of as radical innovations often actually exist as historical precedents.  People tend to be shocked in rough proportion to the amount of history they have managed to forget.  

George F. Kennan, a man who remembers a great deal of history, was one of the earliest and most vocal opponents of NATO expansion, just as he was of the Vietnam War.  In 1966, commenting on the Johnson administration’s claim that any reversal of course in Southeast Asia would fatally compromise American credibility, Kennan reminded the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that “there is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant and unpromising objectives.”^[12]

Perhaps, as Kennan’s biographer, I am slightly biased.  But he was obviously right then.  I think he is right now.

 

John Lewis Gaddis is Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University, where he teaches courses on the Cold War, grand strategy, biography, and historical methods.  His most recent books include The Landscape of History:  How Historians Map the Past (2002), Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (2004), The Cold War:  A New History (2005), George F. Kennan:  An American Life (2011), and On Grand Strategy (2018).  Professor Gaddis co-founded and was the first director of Yale's Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy.  He is also a recipient of two Yale undergraduate teaching awards, the National Humanities Medal, and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for biography.

Notes

[1] The essay that follows was originally prepared for the National Defense University symposium, “Strategy and the Formulation of National Security Policy,” Washington, D. C., October 7, 1997.  It was previously published in Survival as John Gaddis, “History, Grand Strategy and NATO Enlargement,” Survival 40:1 (1998): 145-151, DOI: 10.1093/survival/40.1.145.  © 1998 The International Institute for Strategic Studies, reproduced with permission.  It has been slightly revised for publication on H-Diplo and includes a new preface by the author.

[2] Philip Hardy to John Gaddis February 25, 2022. 

[3] James M. Goldgeier, Not Whether But When:  The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington: Brookings, 1999); Mary E. Sarotte, Not One Inch:  America, Russia, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Stalemate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021). 

[4] See John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know:  Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 68-70.

[5] Richard N. Haass, “Fatal Distraction:  Bill Clinton’s Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, #108 (Fall, 1997), 119. 

[6] See Paul Kennedy, “Let’s See the Pentagon’s Plan for Defending Poland,” Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1977. 

[7] Vojtech Mastny, Reassuring NATO:  Eastern Europe, Russia, and the Western Alliance (Oslo: Institutt for Forsvarsstudier, 1997), 61.

[8] James M. Goldgeier, “U.S. Security Policy Toward the New Europe:  How the Decision to Expand NATO Was Made,” paper delivered at the annual convention of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C., August, 1997. 

[9] See, for example, Sherle R. Schwenninger, “The Case against NATO Enlargement:  Clinton’s Fateful Gamble,” The Nation, CCLXV (October 20, 1997), 26.  

[10] Michael Mandelbaum, The Dawn of Peace in Europe (New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996), 55-56. 

[11] Gaddis, We Now Know, 290-91; also, for Afghanistan, Odd Arne Westad, “The Road to Kabul:  Soviet Policy on Afghanistan, 1978-1979,” in Westad, ed., The Fall of Détente:  Soviet-American Relations during the Carter Years (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1997), 132-33. 

[12] Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings.  Supplemental Foreign Assistance Fiscal Year 1966 -- Vietnam(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1966), 335-36.