Rise of the Rest 
Pankaj Mishra
- The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria Buy this book
- The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order by Parag Khanna
In 1946, George Kennan, then the deputy head of the US mission in Moscow, sent a 5300-word telegram to Washington, hoping to alert his superiors to the threat of Soviet expansionism. Kennan had complained repeatedly and fruitlessly about what he saw as America’s indulgent attitude towards the Soviet Union, but for a crucial moment in 1946 his idea that the US should strike an alliance with Western Europe in order to contain Soviet Communism found listeners in Washington. The so-called Long Telegram, subsequently turned into an article in Foreign Affairs, became the basis of the Truman Doctrine, which proclaimed America’s willingness to fight the spread of Communism, militarily as well as economically.
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Pankaj Mishra’s most recent book is Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Beyond.
Other articles by this contributor:
Ordained as a Nation · Exporting Democracy
The ‘People’s War’ · the Maoists of Nepal
Getting Rich · Pankaj Mishra in Shanghai
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