Del Pero credits him for bringing to foreign policy a distinctly European rather than American cast of mind, far more concerned with achieving order and equilibrium than securing freedom and democracy. In this new era, we are told, Kissinger went to great lengths to encourage naive America to adapt itself to a new status of recognising limits to power in a complex world that did not conform to its idealist expectations.
All true. Unfortunately, the point is largely lost on the authors of the two-volume America and the Cold War, It was one thing for the US to contain the Soviets in Europe; it was another thing to apply that doctrine to the Third World where local conditions and cultural histories, not monolithic Communism, largely held sway. But realpolitik -- with secrecy, back channels and a cold eye cast on power, a recognition and acceptance of the limits to power, a lack of moral prejudices, an appreciation for balance and stability in the international system — was not the language of Cold War American idealists.
Bush advisers Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz advised. Indeed, the neo-con backlash against realpolitik is all but ignored. True, any administration during this period would have acknowledged US limits as a result of Vietnam and it would probably explored the possibility of exploiting the Sino-Soviet split that was increasingly evident in the late s.
His first two volumes of his memoirs, written in and , recount the story of his trying to wean Americans away from their Wilsonian idealism and to make them see the necessity of pursuing more modest aims of stability and equilibrium.
But the third volume of his memoirs published in , a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, tells a very different story. All of this is a reminder that Kissinger, for all his gravitas and diplomatic skills, is intellectually dishonest. A caricature of Australian strategic policy since Federation is that we slavishly attach ourselves to the dominant Western naval power of the day in the hope great and powerful distant friends will protect Joe Biden has passed a signature bill through Congress, but it's just a warm up for the next one.
The Build Back Better Plan is facing an uphill battle, with members of the After months of haggling On 1 September , the Texas Heartbeat Act effectively banned abortions in Texas and launched a monumental challenge to constitutional guarantees in the United States.
The new law, now in front of the First published 1 September Read next Commentary View. Interview View. Can Joe Biden actually change America? Newsletter View. The 46th "Finally, infrastructure week! I regularly get accused of conducting realpolitik. From inception, it also included a strong dose of what I have described so far as anti-realpolitik. Much has been made of the time he spent in his native Germany, returning as an American soldier, in the final stages of the Second World War, under Fritz Kraemer — a fellow German American, who recognized his intellectual talents — with the 84th Division in Bensheim.
It was also significant that Kissinger — educated at the Government Department at Harvard, outside the main hubs for the study of international affairs at Yale or Chicago — did not bear the imprint of a particular theory of international relations, and perhaps evaded some of the rhetorical grooves associated with these. Rather than structures or systems, his initial interest was more the history of ideas.
Kissinger was no follower of a single line. He should not, however, be classed as a disciple of Morgenthau, with whom he differed on a number of issues. He spent more time under the tutelage of William Yandell Elliott, who steered him toward other traditions in the history of ideas such as the writings of Homer, Baruch Spinoza, and Georg Wilhelm Hegel.
Toynbee was a liberal internationalist and a delegate to the Paris Peace Conference in Another influence was Carl J. Friedrich, a German-born scholar who had been at Harvard since It has been claimed that Friedrich steered Kissinger away from two prevailing trends in American intellectual life favored by some realists — naturalism and pragmatism, which had little room for the spiritual or supernatural components of intellectual life.
In addition to the history of ideas, Kissinger was as much interested in statesmen and statesmanship — and the role of the individual in managing and mitigating trends in international relations. This was reflected in A World Restored , based on his doctoral thesis. Castlereagh killed himself in and his policies were denounced by later generations; Metternich fell in and the balancing act by which he had attempted to preserve the Austrian Empire lurched from crisis to crisis.
It allowed for the triumph of wisdom and smart statecraft to mediate danger and steer a steady course. But again, it is a mistake to assume that this was simply the preserve of self-described realist thinkers. Of greater significance was his interjection into the Bismarck debate of the s and s. Yet it is worth subjecting the Bismarck comparison to greater scrutiny as it provides a clue to much else besides. In , shortly before his appointment by Nixon, Kissinger published his own reflections on Bismarck which he had been unable to include in his original PhD thesis.
It was also markedly different from the version of Bismarckism celebrated by George Kennan, leading to a revealing discussion between the two.
After publication, Kissinger wrote to Kennan:. I have enjoyed your book greatly. Not that it fails to be depressing. If even Bismarck could not prevent what he clearly foresaw, what chance does the modern period have? That is the real nightmare. Yet Kissinger always had a sense of the need to keep a rein on Bismarckism, based on his understanding of its aftereffects in Germany.
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