According to historian David Mayers, Kennan argued that Tito's perceived pro-Soviet position was in fact a ploy to " buttress Khrushchev's position within the Politburo against hardliners opposed to improving relations with the West and against China, which was pushing for a major Soviet – U. S. showdown.

According to Kennan, whose concept of American diplomacy was based on the realist approach, such moralism without regard to the realities of power and the national interest is self-defeating and will lead to the erosion of American power.

According to Kennan, when American policymakers suddenly confronted the Cold War, they had inherited little more than rationale and rhetoric " utopian in expectations, legalistic in concept, moralistic in demand it seemed to place on others, and self-righteous in the degree of high-mindedness and rectitude ... to ourselves.

According to Kennan, the Soviet Union did not see the possibility for long-term peaceful coexistence with the capitalist world.