[PEN-L:1597] Re: Re: George Kennan

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Brad writes: >Kennan's position was not the "dovish" position. The "dovish"
>position was
>>held by those who took human rights, the raising of living standards, and
>>democratization seriously.
>>
>>The passage quoted from Kennan is *attacking* the "dovish" position within
>>the Truman Administration. It is not an illustration of the dovish position.
>
>You or I can use the word "dovish" any way we want, but it's important to
>quote Chomsky _in context_. If he is following his normal style (articles
>in Z magazine, etc.), he is talking about the "dovish" wing of the U.S.
>foreign policy establishment. His point, of course, is that dovish wing
>isn't especially dovish.

But there *was* a dovish wing of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment in
the immediate aftermath of World War II, committed to decolonization,
democracy, and economic recovery. That "hard-nosed realists" in the State
Department didn't like them didn't keep them from exercising a remarkable
amount of sway over U.S. foreign policy in the aftermath of World War II:
the creation of the World Bank and the IMF. GATT to open up U.S. markets to
exporters in other countries. The Marshall Plan.

Chomsky isn't trying to use irony to say that the "dovish" wing of the U.S.
foreign policy establishment is not particularly dovish. He is trying to
keep people from noticing that there was a powerful--and very effective
group that took very seriously inded the ideals that Kennan thought naive.
Chomsky's trying to hide the ball...


Brad DeLong

Professor J. Bradford De Long
Department of Economics, #3880
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
(510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 voice
(510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 fax
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/