Cold War diplomat's lessons still worthwhile

　僕は英辞郎を使って英語を読みまくり、インターネットラジオのNHKのラジオジャパン英語ニュースで時事英語を聞きまくってます。（＾＾；
参考「こんな感じで英辞郎を使ってます」

Cold War diplomat's lessons still worthwhile

04/11/2005

Those blessed with a long life are able to see how their accomplishments in their younger days are judged by history. Fortunate is anyone whose accomplishments are deemed positive. One such man was George F. Kennan, a former senior U.S. State Department official who died on March 17 at 101.

2005年03月27日（日曜日）付
【天声人語】

　長寿に恵まれると、若いときの仕事に歴史がどんな審判を下すかを知ることができる。プラスの評価を得る者は幸いだ。今月１７日に１０１歳で亡くなった元米国務省高官のジョージ・ケナン氏は、そんな一人である。

In the chaos after World War II, Kennan became the principal architect of the Cold War containment policy aimed at the Soviet Union. By the placing checks on the Soviet Union's inherently expansionistic tendencies through patient diplomacy, he predicted, the Soviet system could be made to implode from its own internal contradictions. In postwar Japan, Kennan advocated a moderate occupation policy that could be later changed to focus on economic recovery.

　第二次大戦後、冷戦初期の動乱期に活躍したケナン氏は、辛抱強い外交でソ連の膨張的傾向をチェックすれば、内部矛盾から崩壊すると予言、「封じ込め」を立案した。日本に対する占領政策を緩やかなものにして、経済復興を重視する路線に転換させた。

Kennan witnessed in his own lifetime the collapse of the Soviet Union and Japan's growth into an economic powerhouse.

However, his outspokenness against excessive moralism in U.S. diplomacy and his admonitions about overrating the use of force were not welcomed in Washington, and he was forced to resign from the State Department in 1953. After he joined the Faculty of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, he continued to influence American foreign policy through his writings, including those denouncing the Vietnam War.

　ソ連の崩壊と日本の経済大国化を、彼は自分の目で見届けることができた。ただし、米外交の過剰な道徳主義や軍事手段の過大評価を戒める提言は、ワシントンでは理解されず、５３年に退任に追い込まれた。プリンストン高等研究所に移り、著作を通じてベトナム戦争を批判するなど米外交に影響を与え続けた。

I thought about Kennan when I interviewed then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage right after 9/11, when I asked Armitage what sort of long-term effects the terrorist attacks might have on U.S. foreign policy. Armitage replied with pride that it was the job of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff to think and plan ahead for next 20 years.

　ケナン氏と言えば、思い出すことがある。同時多発テロ直後、アーミテージ国務副長官に米外交への長期的な影響をたずねたところ、「国務省には、２０年先を考える部局がある。政策企画室だ」と胸をはった。

It was Kennan who created the Policy Planning Staff in 1947, becoming its first director and drawing up a blueprint for U.S. foreign policy.

But now that the United States has invaded Iraq without a consensus of the international community, and Iraq is still far from establishing its own democracy.

　この政策企画室こそ、若きケナン氏が初代室長を務め、米外交の青写真を描いた部局だった。しかし、米国は、国際社会の合意を待たずにイラク戦争に突入、いまだにイラクの民主化の確たる見通しはない。

I wonder what State Department officials who came after Kennan have been doing.

Late in life, Kennan observed that we should all view our country from a balanced perspective, adding that we cannot change the world as much as we would like.

　国務省の彼の後輩たちは何をしていたのだろう。「私たちは自国についてバランスのとれた見方をすべきだ。自分で思うほど世界を変えることはできない」。ケナン氏が残した言葉である。

--The Asahi Shimbun, March 27(IHT/Asahi: April 11,2005)