George Kennan and the Wolfowitz Doctrine
George Kennan and the Wolfowitz Doctrine What the hell am I doing? That is a question that really interests me. —Theodore Zeldin Dear Friends + Interlocutors, What are they trying to do, what do they want to accomplish, and why? With reference to the entrenched cabal that has been running Washington for decades, in particular since the end of the Cold War (1990), these basic questions have been racking my brain in recent weeks. We’ve got to step back and look at the big picture, a larger context. Does the world's current predicament basically derive from the so-called Wolfowitz Doctrine of 1992 , prepared under the stewardship of Dick Cheney at the Pentagon? In the aftermath of the Soviet Union collapse (1989) and the U.S.-led successful ejection of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait (1991), Washington lost its bearings. Its collective mindset went fantee. To quote from the Pentagon document , known as the Defense Planning Guidance: “...The U.S. must show the leadership necessary to