[Animats]

> Especially in matters Kennan understood well, he thought the public should have no say. His diaries show that he was a keen reader of Alexis de Tocqueville, and while he never mentions this specific point, his insistence that foreign policy be conducted by the well born and well educated, without interference from the masses, echoes the French nobleman’s argument that aristocracies are better than democracies at diplomacy.

Well, in the WWI-WWII period, most of the national leaders in Europe knew each other. In the WWI period, when the old monarchies still had some life in them, many of those on opposite sides were related. That's over by the end of WWII.

Here's the "Long Telegram".[1]

"War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other." - Valéry.

[1] https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/george-kenn...