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The Containment of Authoritarianism [1]

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Date: 2023-01-07

A story I penned for this blog titled “A Way Forward on Ukraine” received quite a reaction when it was published right before Christmas, most of it negative.

So, I felt the need to write another story to clarify my position. “A Way Forward on Ukraine” started by condemning Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. It also quoted writer Vladslav Zubok and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Miley on how dangerous the situation is with Russia and how it could escalate if we don’t display our diplomatic chops correctly.

This story will delve into Russia’s history and why it’s important in moving forward. Diplomat George Keenan analyzed the old Soviet Union in a story called “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” based on an earlier State Department report, published in “Foreign Affairs” in 1947. The State report and story played a role in the containment policy that emerged in the Harry Truman Administration. Keenan just didn’t look at the ideology of Marxism/Leninism, he looked at the history of the Russian state before the SU. In February 1946, Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin gave a speech where he said capitalist nations were always in conflict, echoing Marxist theory. He divided the world into two spheres, Communist and capitalist, and said that as long as capitalist nations existed, there will always be wars. Some say the speech was the beginning of the Cold War. Stalin also predicted a war breaking out amongst the United Kingdom and the United States or a US/UK alliance in a war against the SU.

In the State Department report, Keenan thought that the speeches coming out of Soviet Russia were not based on reality. He saw no inherent conflict between capitalist countries, and he dismissed Stalin’s view that the UK and the US would fight a war against each other or join to fight a war against the SU. He said the sources of Russian behavior lie in a Russian sense of insecurity based on its history (Russia has been invaded several times) but also in the ideology of Marxist/Leninism. In the “Foreign Affairs” story, Keenan said that Soviet Marxism served as the "pseudo-scientific justification" for why Stalin and the other leaders ought to remain in power despite lacking popular support. He quoted Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” at times. The diplomat also wrote that the Soviet leaders' "aggressive intransigence" against the outside world compelled them "to chastise the contumacy" which they had provoked. To maintain power, the Soviet leaders would need to maintain the illusion of external threats.

Keenan felt that Russia had been historically unable to undergo contact with other nations or make a comparison with them. Until the Soviet Union either experienced consistent failures or their leader was persuaded that their own foreign policy was negatively affecting their nation's interests, the West could not expect any reciprocity from the Soviets. The Soviet government could be understood as occupying two distinct spaces: an official, visible government and another operating without any official acknowledgement. While the former would participate in international diplomacy, the latter would attempt to undermine the capitalist nations as much as possible, including efforts to "disrupt national self-confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity." The diplomat predicted that the Soviets ultimately have no expectation of reconciliation with the West.

Keenan saw a need to educate the public on the dangers of international Communism, and he thought it was necessary to keep the West strong to ward off the Soviet’s expansive tendencies. Keenan advocated a policy of containment, a welcome policy considering some were promoting rollback, a policy that would have led to a dangerous world war with the Soviets. He thought that containment was a strong enough policy because of the weakness of the Soviet economy and the fact that the SU didn’t have an orderly process for continuing its leadership from leader to leader. Mr. Keenan predicted correctly that the policy of containment would lead to the breakup of the SU or its mellowing. As history would play out, we witnessed its mellowing under Mikhail Gorbachev and its dissolution in the early 1990s.

Mr. Keenan was what foreign policy thinkers would call a realist, or one who sees the world as states pursuing their own interests. He later argued against our involvement in Vietnam because Vietnam was a poor, peasant country and had no strategic role in the US pursing its own interest, part of which is increasing its own wealth. Keenan also thought the doctrine of containment had been militarized too much.

Russia is still a paranoid county that remembers all the times it’s been invaded. Its leaders use Putin’s authoritarianism as a method of maintaining power, just like the Marxist/Leninists. Many Russian oligarchs have become quite wealthy under Putin and like the current power structure. However, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion under President Bill Clinton in the 1990’s played into the hands of this authoritarianism. Keenan thought it would be the beginnings of a second Cold War. While authoritarianism is a problem, it’s not a block in the sense that Communist nations were a block, with the exception of Marshall Tito’s Yugoslavia. Authoritarian India and Brazil choose to stay neutral in the proxy war between Ukraine and Russia. Various forms of authoritarianism claim to product segments of the population from internal threats to their national identity, but those threats differ by the country. Narendra Modi’s India sees a threat to the country’s Hindu culture while Putin’s authoritarian claims to speak for Russian Orthodoxy.

Like Marxist/Leninism, Putin’s authoritarianism will wither from the inside. His invasion of Ukraine is against international law, just like the invasion of Crimea. However, it’s in the best interest of the US to oversee a stalemate in the war. Russia will most likely be forced out of Ukraine, but it would take too much effort and treasure to try and free the Donbas and Crimea. As Miley said, this is not a war that’s winnable by military means, and the world could be looking at another world war if things become too hot.

If contained wisely, Putin’s authoritarianism will fade, and Russia could be integrated into a European security structure. Keenan was wise enough to see the collapse of Communism in the 40’s. Although credit is usually given to a late Cold War era defense buildup that started under President Jimmy Carter and continued under President Ronald Reagan (It’s usually forgotten that it started under Carter). In moving into the future, it will be also important to remember how we diplomatically engaged the old SU at time. If authoritarianism loses its hold on various populaces around the world, then maybe a world will emerge where states pursue their own interests within the framework of an international order that respects those interests, something like international relations theorist Hedley Bull wrote about in the “Anarchical Society.”

Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer for the Peace Economy

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/7/2146010/-The-Containment-of-Authoritarianism

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