Final answer:
George Kennan's Long Telegram served as a warning about the Soviet Union's expansionist tendencies and totalitarian nature, which led to the U.S. policy of containment to prevent the spread of communism.
Step-by-step explanation:
In his influential Long Telegram, George Kennan articulated a grim view of the Soviet Union and the intentions behind its foreign policies. Kennan posited that the Soviets were strategically committed to disrupting the stability of the United States and other capitalist nations in order to safeguard their own power. He argued that the Soviet state was not a revolutionary government but a totalitarian dictatorship with expansionist tendencies disguised as international Marxism. He outlined the need for a strategy of containment, suggesting that the U.S. should confine Soviet influence to its current borders, anticipating that over time, the communist system would collapse under its own weight without spreading to additional nations.