morality and foreign policy, george f. kennan, winter 1985/86 issue
DESCRIPTION
"These needs have no moral quality.... They are the unavoidable necessities of a national existence and therefore not subject to classification as either 'good' or 'bad.' [A government] needs no moral justification, nor need it accept any moral reproach for acting on the basis of them.[T]he functions, commitments and moral obligations of governments are not the same as those of the individual. Government is an agent, not a principal. Its primary obligation is to the interests of the national society it represents, not to the moral impulses that individual elements of that society may experience."TRANSCRIPT
