[Kennan] ends the telegram with five comments, all of which might be recalled today as the United States confronts new threats:

First, Kennan argues, we need to study the "nature of the movement" that is Soviet communism. He says: "We must study it with same courage, detachment, and same determination not to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it. . ."

Second, Kennan argues, "we must see that our public is educated to the realities of Russian situation." He goes on to say that "I am convinced that there would be far less hysterical anti-Sovietism in our country today if realities of this situation were better understood by our people. There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown. It may be argued that to reveal more information on our difficulties with Russia would reflect unfavorably on Russian-American relations. I feel that if there is any real risk here involved, it is one which we should have courage to face, and sooner the better." He says: "I am convinced we have better chance of realizing those hopes if our public is enlightened and if our dealings with Russians are placed entirely on realistic and matter-of-fact basis."

Third, Kennan says: "Much depends on health and vigor of our own society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meet Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic notes and joint communiques. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit – Moscow cannot help profiting by them in its foreign policies."

Fourth, Kennan argues: "We must formulate and put forward for other nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of past, and are less interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance rather than responsibilities . We should be better able than Russians to give them this. And unless we do, Russians certainly will."

Fifth, Kennan concludes his long telegram thusly: "Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping."

It has been fashionable since September 11 to argue, as the Bush administration has done, that "everything has changed" – and that the old rules and old strategies must be rethought for a frightening and transformed world. I just don’t buy this argument. Indeed, if the Bush administration had read the long telegram – particularly the last section and Kennan’s five admonitions – American foreign policy would be in better shape today than it is.

Immediately after the attacks of 9/11, I knew that it was absolutely imperative for me to know more about why they happened: who were the people who did this?, what did they want?, why had they attacked us? All of those questions were necessary to be answered in order to understand how best to deal with them. I think many other liberal-minded people who were not foreign-policy savants had the same thought: find out more about them, so we can know why this happened and what we should do.

For this instinct, liberals in general were roundly lambasted as weak, appeasers, perhaps even traitors. Any response to the attacks which was not immediately an all-out balls-to-the-wall military one was decried as unpatriotic and unAmerican. Never mind that I supported a military reprisal against the Taliban, the very fact that I also advocated other programs designed to win in another way entirely was enough to be branded.

Whatever, what I wrote shortly after 9/11 still seems true to me, and has been borne out by the debacle of Iraq:

We *must* act as nation-builders, or at least facilitators so that nations can rebuild themselves. We should do this not out of guilt, from simply as a matter of enlightened self-interest. ... [W]e need to remind ourselves that the purpose of any military action should not be retribution or retaliation for its own sake, although we would certainly be justified in seeking those things. Any military action should be in the service of the ultimate goal of making Americans secure, not only in their homeland but elsewhere in the world. Any military action, or any other part of this campaign against terrorism that we have been thrust into, which doesn't serve to move us closer to that goal is counter-productive and should not be carried out.

An unbiased observer would have to conclude that the policies of the Bush Administration have not made us more secure since 9/11, but significantly less. I hope that the next, Democratic, administration will draw a lesson from that, and from the historical example of Kennan's long telegram.