Was George Kennan Right About the Diffusion of Power?

Power is abundant in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of government. But as Kennan compellingly observed, its existence is widespread outside of the government, and not only in the United States. It is often used malevolently, which is why the mafia, Taliban, and guerrillas of Colombia exist today.

In almost every country, there is a force greater than or equal to the government. In the Weimar Republic before World War II, the Nazi party was forming and making radical changes to Germany. In the past and today, institutions not politically linked have accumulated power.

If one does not believe that "the element of power is peculiarly diffused", he or she is blind and oblivious to the preying organizations, good or bad, that indirectly control our everyday lives. Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, manipulates the prices of their drugs in their monopoly, making strepthroat or an injured knee cost a fortune. Our own national broadcast stations are censored by office-ranked individuals who see the truth on the news as inconvenient in their favor.

This is why newspapers in Britain and Australia report the same international news but with different facts. This is why in America, people think we went to war with Iraq to free them from dictatorship. This is why in Britain, people know Bush went to war with Iraq for oil.

What is the Russian mafia? A centralized underground organization of eastern Europeans doing corrupt duties for extreme benefits. Even the Russian government itself hasn't been able to exterminate the Mafia, because it simply is that powerful. Kennan was exact and caustic when he stated that "unfortunately, power which exists in irregular forces are capable of terrorizing their fellow citizens in one degree or another."

It can be understood why some may argue that the government holds absolute power, since after all they do make and enforce the laws. But one has to see the whole picture. In Venezuela, the CEOs of the oil companies control the people. That is where the country's wealth is eradicated from and the presidents of the companies administer the selling and at how many dollars per barrel. Whoever controls the resources in any country is the one with the secondary power to the government.

In "weak nations", power maybe concentrated to a Parliament or dictator, but in first-world, industrial countries, power is distributed, though often unevenly. Just the other day, the mayor of Nagasaki, Japan was shot to death by an underworld gangster. For such an organization to sponsor a hitman, it must have power.

Kennan's observations in 1953 still are valid today about the distribution of power within nations. The "pure form" of centered power is sometimes true among the weak, but in developed nations, the competition and greed for power causes a spread of power. A foreign policy representative cannot possibly be wrong about his own profession.