In this new book, Henry Kissinger addresses a theme that runs through his work and public life: how statesmen relate to the international order, in a world where empires would not be interested in operating within a system, but would aspire to be the international system.
His career as a committed academic and intellectual began in the chair of Harvard; advised one of the American political leaders of his time, Nelson Rockefeller; he was appointed Security Advisor by Richard Nixon and then Secretary of State, continuing in that position in the management of Gerald Ford. His erudition and analytical skills were reflected in multiple books, but the core of his work can be identified in A World Restored (1964); My Memoirs (1979/1981) and Diplomacy (1994).
Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon during the US president's visit to China in 1972Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
At the end of the Cold War – the US vs. the USSR – for Kissinger there was a transition: victorious in World War II, the US slowly went from being predominant to influential. In those years, strategic parity was visualized in the SALT Accords (an agreement that limited missile power), an engineering process in which he actively participated. At the beginning of his administration, the US was virtually paralyzed in the Vietnam War and Kissinger approached it by managing a traumatic withdrawal. In the present circumstances, the world would be going through a new transition, with two protagonists, the US and China. In this new transit, Kissinger analyzes here the decisions made by the main leaders of the times.
In Leadership (Debate) Konrad Adenauer parades; Charles de Gaulle; Richard Nixon; Anwar Sadat; Singaporean Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher. Chancellor Adenauer, of Germany between 1949 and 1963, with his "strategy of humility", according to Kissinger, left an inestimable legacy: he consolidated democracy in West Germany; contained the USSR; he helped shape European integration, reinstating Germany, and paved the way for reunification years later.
According to Kissinger, de Gaulle developed a "strategy of the will," highlighting how the French leader, in his June 18, 1940 appeal to the French people from London, behaved as if Free France were not an aspiration but a reality. No one had appointed him and his forces were scarce but he triumphed with the invaluable economic and logistical help of Winston Churchill, who also protected him from Roosevelt's hostility.
On November 21, 2019 he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping(Photo: Jason Lee/AFP)
Nixon would have executed a "strategy of balance." One of the most controversial presidents, the only one who had to resign, is pondered by his faithful collaborator: "he was the president who at the height of the Cold War reformulated a global order in decline." It ended the intervention in Vietnam, placed the US as the dominant foreign power in the Middle East and by opening up to China imposed a triangular dynamic, replacing a bipolar one, which would end up leaving the USSR at a decisive strategic disadvantage. Kissinger on this question affirms "not wanting to revive controversies, but to analyze the thought and personality of a leader who assumed in the midst of a cultural and political upheaval and who by adopting a geopolitical notion of the national interest transformed the foreign policy of his country." It was indeed strategic thinking: Beijing feared "preemptive punishment" from Moscow, and the US gave it invaluable additional power. In those circumstances, U.S./China cooperation applied as a mechanism of cooperation against Soviet expansionism.
Henry, the mighty
For Kissinger, Anwar Sadat was a man who tried to resurrect an ancient dialogue between Jews and Arabs. That belief, in the coexistence of societies based on different religions, proved intolerable to its opponents. Despite his friendship with former President Gamal Nasser, Sadat kept his distance from the policy of dependence on the USSR. After the death of the leader, Sadat would have acted according to his instincts, approaching the US hoping for help to achieve Israel's withdrawal to the borders of the 1967 war. Kissinger explains Sadat's decision to return to war: it was impossible to maintain a "state of no war and no peace." That is why he sought peace in a new war: in 1973. After a new defeat, Sadat opted for diplomacy and bet on President Jimmy Carter's global peace proposal. In November 1977, he responded to the White House by mentioning a hypothetical visit to Israel: "Israel will be surprised to hear me say that I do not refuse to go to your house to talk about peace." Kissinger highlights the symbols: he visited the Holocaust Museum, prayed at the Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and pleaded in the Knesset for lasting peace. Finally, Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize for the Camp David Accords. Sadat, Kissinger tells us, did not achieve peace, but he achieved a "historic change in Egypt's pattern of behavior." Kissinger concludes, "Rabin and Sadat died at the hands of assassins who opposed the changes that peace would bring, and the Sadat I knew had gone from a strategic vision to a prophetic one."
LeadershipHenry KissingerEditorial: Debate
Kissinger treated Lee Kuan Yew at Harvard, where Singapore's prime minister took a sabbatical to "get his hands on new ideas." Kissinger and his colleagues had a surprise: Lee asked about the Vietnam War, the professors voiced their opposition and asked for his opinion. Lee was clear: his small country depended on the U.S. confronting the communist guerrillas threatening Southeast Asia. For Kissinger, that response was "a dispassionate geopolitical analysis" that described Singapore's national interest: economic viability and security. Lee sought support for a country without natural resources whose expectation was to grow thanks to "the cultivation of its main capital: the quality of its people." He did not frame his task in the categories of the Cold War, he sought a regional order that Washington should support. For Kissinger, Lee did not get carried away by trends, he took advantage of the countercurrent, he governed a small country without the culture of centuries. Without a past, Kissinger says, he had no guarantee of a future. He had no margin for error.
In 1975, he hosted Margaret Thatcher, leader of the British Conservatives. Photo: AP/Bob Daugherty.
Finally, the portrait of Margaret Thatcher. Woman and outsider, from that perspective Kissinger agiganta her and highlights her personal strength. She considers that she achieved a moment of rebirth, based on a tenacity and convictions put at the service of an economic and spiritual project. He never recanted; He confronted the unions and rebuilt the alliance with Washington, based on a privileged relationship with Reagan. Kissinger places her in the gallery of the best portraits of the statesmen who shaped an international order: he defined her as the "Iron Lady of the Western world".
Carlos Pérez Llana holds a PhD in Political Science
See also