ASIA
07 January 2024
The Wisdom of Dr Kissinger
Following the sad passing of Henry Kissinger, John West has taken to reading more of his books. Here are some comments on “Diplomacy”.
In 1994, Henry Kissinger published his extraordinary book, “Diplomacy”. It offers a grand sweep of international relations and the art of diplomacy, beginning in Europe in the 17th century, moving quickly up to the 20th century and its World Wars, and then the Cold War.
Some thirty years on, this remains an excellent book, with its penetrating and analytical telling of history. And many of the lessons he offers for America’s foreign policy are still very pertinent today.
Kissinger believes that the US in its approach to foreign policy has had a very unique experience, not shared by any other nation. But the period in which that policy could thrive has come to an end because of US success in winning the Cold War.
The richness of Kissinger’s book comes in large part through his weaving of historical context into the narrative. He argues that throughout its history the US has been the only sizeable nation that was peopled exclusively by immigrants, the only major nation that was created to vindicate the idea of liberty (Kissinger sadly never mentions America’s first nations). The US is the only major nation that has not had to concern itself with the problem of security for the greatest part of its history. The US could choose whether it would involve itself in international affairs or not.
According to Kissinger, two very distinctive approaches developed to American foreign policy. The dominant trend in the 19th century was the idea that America fulfilled its purposes best by turning itself into an example for humankind, emphasising its domestic institutions.
Starting in the 20th century, the idea that America fulfilled its special obligations best by going out into the world and spreading its fundamental values, implementing and promoting democracy. For a good part of the 20th century, the internal American debate oscillated between those two positions.
Both positions were based on the proposition that the American experience was exceptional and it therefore led to an attitude in which America believed that if it was involved in foreign affairs, it was for principles not for interests, for causes not for national purposes. For example, speaking of the Gulf War, President H.W.Bush said that we prevailed because we were defending international law and because everyone knew that the US had no ulterior motive.
But Kissinger believes that basing foreign policy on universal principles and causes diminishes the capacity to prioritise different, individual cases. In this context, he cites the case of the Vietnam war. Kissinger recalls that at the end of World War 2, George Kenan, Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles developed the theory of “containment”. This theory of containment argued that communist aggression had to be resisted wherever it took place.
Since communist aggression was taking place in South Vietnam, it was automatically deemed as crucial to American security. However, Kissinger argues that it may not have been necessary to defend South Vietnam by going to war, there may have been other less costly ways. Kissinger also takes issue with America’s attitude to back certain leaders in other countries, like Gorbachev and then Yeltsin, which often doesn’t work.
Kissinger believed that at the end of the Cold War, the US did not have an ideological enemy nor a geostrategic enemy that could be clearly identified as a permanent antagonist. It was a world of several powers with the capacity to influence events – US, Japan, China, Europe, Russia, India and maybe in South America (at that point Kissinger did not foresee the extent of China’s rise). In such a world, there are only two ways to have stability – hegemony or equilibrium (balance-of-power). In this world, the US could not be a hegemon, it was no longer as dominant as it was in the Cold War period when the USSR was its only rival. In making this argument Kissinger seems to take issue with the conventional wisdom that the 1990s were America’s “unipolar moment”.
According to balance-of-power logic, the US needed to arrange an international order in which, while disagreements and conflicts may still exist, they are kept to levels which do not threaten the overall system – that is, nations compete within certain limits. You achieve this by making it very difficult for any nation or group of nations to achieve preponderant power. You don’t rely on goodwill but on self restraint imposed by necessity. Kissinger also believes that this works best not only when there is a balance of power but when there is a certain community of values.
But Kissinger’s basic point is that in the world into which we were moving, with these various power centres, some idea of the American national interest is absolutely imperative. Without this, the US will be trapped time and again in situations in which it seems worthwhile to enter but it does not know how to extricate itself, or that extricating itself is very costly. He cites the ill-fated case of US intervention in Somalia in 1992 (Kissinger was writing well before America’s ill-fated interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq). If the US does not know what its fundamental interests are, there will be more and more crises like this. Kissinger strongly believes that the US does not have the capacity to solve every problem that exists in the world simultaneously.
Of particular relevance to the world today are Kissinger’s comments on Russia, just three years after the demise of the Soviet Union. In 1994 he said that Russia wanted to regain control over its “near abroad”, meaning that it was attempting to have a military presence in all of the neighbouring states of the former Soviet Union, and to have a veto over all the countries of the former Warsaw Pact. He said that Russia should be told that if it engages in expansion, the US would oppose it, not necessarily by force, but it will pay a price in American relations.
In other words, although Kissinger speaks of the end of the Cold War, he seems to recognise that Russia never accepted an ending of the Cold War.
Some 30 years after its publication, Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” remains one of the very greatest books on the history of international relations. And it only has 900 or so pages, about half the length of his magnum opus, “White House Years”. As the old saying goes, irrespective of whether Kissinger is a great writer, it is only a great reader who will make it to the end of his books!
Some thirty years on, this remains an excellent book, with its penetrating and analytical telling of history. And many of the lessons he offers for America’s foreign policy are still very pertinent today.
Kissinger believes that the US in its approach to foreign policy has had a very unique experience, not shared by any other nation. But the period in which that policy could thrive has come to an end because of US success in winning the Cold War.
The richness of Kissinger’s book comes in large part through his weaving of historical context into the narrative. He argues that throughout its history the US has been the only sizeable nation that was peopled exclusively by immigrants, the only major nation that was created to vindicate the idea of liberty (Kissinger sadly never mentions America’s first nations). The US is the only major nation that has not had to concern itself with the problem of security for the greatest part of its history. The US could choose whether it would involve itself in international affairs or not.
According to Kissinger, two very distinctive approaches developed to American foreign policy. The dominant trend in the 19th century was the idea that America fulfilled its purposes best by turning itself into an example for humankind, emphasising its domestic institutions.
Starting in the 20th century, the idea that America fulfilled its special obligations best by going out into the world and spreading its fundamental values, implementing and promoting democracy. For a good part of the 20th century, the internal American debate oscillated between those two positions.
Both positions were based on the proposition that the American experience was exceptional and it therefore led to an attitude in which America believed that if it was involved in foreign affairs, it was for principles not for interests, for causes not for national purposes. For example, speaking of the Gulf War, President H.W.Bush said that we prevailed because we were defending international law and because everyone knew that the US had no ulterior motive.
But Kissinger believes that basing foreign policy on universal principles and causes diminishes the capacity to prioritise different, individual cases. In this context, he cites the case of the Vietnam war. Kissinger recalls that at the end of World War 2, George Kenan, Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles developed the theory of “containment”. This theory of containment argued that communist aggression had to be resisted wherever it took place.
Since communist aggression was taking place in South Vietnam, it was automatically deemed as crucial to American security. However, Kissinger argues that it may not have been necessary to defend South Vietnam by going to war, there may have been other less costly ways. Kissinger also takes issue with America’s attitude to back certain leaders in other countries, like Gorbachev and then Yeltsin, which often doesn’t work.
Kissinger believed that at the end of the Cold War, the US did not have an ideological enemy nor a geostrategic enemy that could be clearly identified as a permanent antagonist. It was a world of several powers with the capacity to influence events – US, Japan, China, Europe, Russia, India and maybe in South America (at that point Kissinger did not foresee the extent of China’s rise). In such a world, there are only two ways to have stability – hegemony or equilibrium (balance-of-power). In this world, the US could not be a hegemon, it was no longer as dominant as it was in the Cold War period when the USSR was its only rival. In making this argument Kissinger seems to take issue with the conventional wisdom that the 1990s were America’s “unipolar moment”.
According to balance-of-power logic, the US needed to arrange an international order in which, while disagreements and conflicts may still exist, they are kept to levels which do not threaten the overall system – that is, nations compete within certain limits. You achieve this by making it very difficult for any nation or group of nations to achieve preponderant power. You don’t rely on goodwill but on self restraint imposed by necessity. Kissinger also believes that this works best not only when there is a balance of power but when there is a certain community of values.
But Kissinger’s basic point is that in the world into which we were moving, with these various power centres, some idea of the American national interest is absolutely imperative. Without this, the US will be trapped time and again in situations in which it seems worthwhile to enter but it does not know how to extricate itself, or that extricating itself is very costly. He cites the ill-fated case of US intervention in Somalia in 1992 (Kissinger was writing well before America’s ill-fated interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq). If the US does not know what its fundamental interests are, there will be more and more crises like this. Kissinger strongly believes that the US does not have the capacity to solve every problem that exists in the world simultaneously.
Of particular relevance to the world today are Kissinger’s comments on Russia, just three years after the demise of the Soviet Union. In 1994 he said that Russia wanted to regain control over its “near abroad”, meaning that it was attempting to have a military presence in all of the neighbouring states of the former Soviet Union, and to have a veto over all the countries of the former Warsaw Pact. He said that Russia should be told that if it engages in expansion, the US would oppose it, not necessarily by force, but it will pay a price in American relations.
In other words, although Kissinger speaks of the end of the Cold War, he seems to recognise that Russia never accepted an ending of the Cold War.
Some 30 years after its publication, Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” remains one of the very greatest books on the history of international relations. And it only has 900 or so pages, about half the length of his magnum opus, “White House Years”. As the old saying goes, irrespective of whether Kissinger is a great writer, it is only a great reader who will make it to the end of his books!