Diplomacy: Kissinger — A Crude Review
Brief Overview of Henry Kissinger’s book: Diplomacy
In light of the upcoming release of Kissinger’s new book, Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, which I cannot wait to get my hands on, I decided to write this review on one of Dr. Kissinger’s classic’s Diplomacy, more as a refresher to myself on the tome which he conjured, and to anyone interested in his works.
To begin, I do agree with the partisan positions to which Kissinger’s life, decisions, and actions inspire people to take. Some of my favourite authors/“intellectuals” detest the man. His non-interventionist mood, yet interventionist decisions is a bit dumbfounding to say the least. But all this aside, Kissinger’s manner in describing history and world order, specifically from the Western lens is like a symphony in harmony. Sure there are many historians and authors who do the same, but it hits a bit different when it is written by someone whom participated in so many world changing events of the past century, and dealt with the dynamics of powerful yet at times mercurial tempered people whom’s decisions ultimately affected the lives of so many others. So let this introduction serve as a means to assuage tempers, I do not agree that all he has done is right, nor that all he has done is wrong, rather something else, exactly what? I am not sure.
I will just highlight a few of the topics which I found interesting:
- Distinction
- Monroe Doctrine to Wilsonianism
- European Balance of Power and Cardinal Richelieu
- Concert of Europe and Metternich
- Two New Revolutionaries: Napoleon III and Bismarck
- Entrance of Realpolitik
- Reemergence of the Vanquished
- Illusion No More
- Future Outlook
A Distinction:
To begin, Kissinger notes a subtle distinction between a statesman and an “analyst”, here he is alluding to the man in the arena metaphor. He notes that the statesman acts based on assessments that are based in uncertainty, and as a consequence will be judged by history for the wiseness of his actions. How well did he or her navigate the change that was inevitable? Kissinger strongly alludes to the fact that this examination is a long process and that contemporary diplomacy shares much overlap during this examination process.
Monroe Doctrine to Wilsonianism:
Initially, Kissinger harps on the isolationist tendencies of America as a nation state. He does this to serve as a prelude to geopolitics in the 20th century, before going all the way back.
Light is shed upon the history of meaning behind the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which as he puts it “made a moat of the ocean which separated the United States from Europe”. Going beyond the non interventionist stance of America at that point, it declared that the reverse must also hold, Europe must not involve themselves within the affairs of the New World — the whole Western Hemisphere. This would allow America to pursue policies very akin to those of European monarchies, and allowing itself to become “a great power, without practicing power politics.” As Kissinger notes, America’s foreign policy was to not have a foreign policy, key to this was it not regarding it western expansion as foreign policy, it viewed it in more idealistic terms.
This changed with the arrival of Woodrow Wilson and Wilsonianism.
Wilson’s view was that there was no difference between freedom for America and freedom for the world. As Kissinger notes, “he [Wilson] developed an extraordinary interpretation of what George Washington had really meant when he warned against foreign entanglements.” To summarize, Wilson’s interpretation was that America must not fight for the “purpose” of others, rather for the cause of humanity as a whole, and such things could not be in of themselves “foreign”. America thus had free reign to involve itself abroad.
Europe Balance of Power & Cardinal Richelieu :
We now head to the 17th century.
The European balance of power, which Kissinger states, emerged due to the disintegration of medieval hopes of universality — just as one God ruled in heaven, one emperor would rule over the secular world. But when the Reformation came and caused the weakening of the Papacy, with it went the aspirations of a European hegemony. As Kissinger words it “… in the sixteenth century, the emperor came to be perceived in Protestant lands less as an agent of God than as a Viennese warlord tied to a decadent pope.”
The concept of unity went by the wayside and the resultant states of Europe needed something, someone to ease relations and tensions. This was found with the concept of raison d’état and the balance of power.
The country that stood to lose the most from going back to the ways of old, was France. Kissinger notes, “with religious restraints weakened, France began to exploit the rivalries that the Reformation had generated among its neighbors. French rulers recognized that the progressive weakening of the Holy Roman Empire (and even more its disintegration) would enhance France’s security and, with good fortune, enable it to expand eastward.”
The mastermind of this French policy was none other than Cardinal de Richelieu, prince of the Church and First Minister of France from 1624 to 1642. Few men had greater impact on modern history than Richelieu. He brought into existence raison d’état — or in today’s words, a national security interest. Richelieu put the French national interest above any religious goals. His life as a Cardinal did not hinder him from seeing the ulterior motives to which other European players were making. Richelieu felt no comfort from the shared faith which the Habsburg’s of Spain and Austria shared with France — a victory for the Counter-Reformation was exactly what Richelieu was determined to prevent. Richelieu he viewed his role as minister in entirely secular terms. “Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter,” he said. “The state has no immortality, its salvation is now or never.”
Forging friendships and making alliances was to him for the sake of the state, and not a higher motive. He did so at first with the Protestant states and, later, even with the Muslim Ottoman Empire. As Kissinger points out, “ He [Richelieu] succeeded so well [in prolonging the war] that the war that had begun in 1618 dragged on decade after decade until, finally, history found no more appropriate name for it than its duration — the Thirty Years’ War.”
At the end of the war, with the signing of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, France having secured a dominant position, the doctrine of raison d’état found itself as the guiding principle of European diplomacy.
The balance of power emerged. States were no longer restrained by some altruistic moral duty. The state existed to serve the state.
The Concert of Europe & Metternich:
After Napoleon’s rule over Europe during the years merging the 18th and 19th centuries, a need to rebuild international order had become a top priority. Five sides came together, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain, in the Congress of Vienna to cut some sort of deal, establish some sort of order. After the Congress, Europe experienced the longest period of peace it had ever known. No war took place among the Great Powers for forty years, and after the Crimean War of 1854, no general war for another sixty.
Klemens von Metternich of Austria, was one of the key architects in establishing this order, and it is what earned him the monicker “the Coachman of Europe.” Metternich along with his equals on the other 4 sides in Vienna , recognized that if Central Europe were to have peace and stability, they would have to undo the doings of Richelieu. Two alliances were established, namely the Quadruple Alliance, consisting of Great Britain, Prussia, Austria, and Russia; and the Holy Alliance of Prussia, Austria, and Russia — to express a merger between the balance of power and shared sense of legitimacy among the participants. Legitimacy played a key role, especially in the eyes of Metternich who identified peace with it.
A key point which Kissinger makes note of is that “the difference between the Wilsonian and the Metternich approaches to domestic justice and international order is fundamental to understanding the contrasting views of America and Europe.” Wilson crusading for principles which to him were revolutionary and Metternich seeking to institutionalize values he considered ancient.
During this time Metternich played a great balancing act. He could not move himself too close to the Russian Tsar as it would risk his position with the Brits, and the more he risked that, the further he had to move towards the Tsar to avoid isolation.
Around this time, Napoleon III, who took power via coup, also convinced the Turkish Sultan to grant him status as Protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, a role traditionally reserved for the Tsar, Nicholas I. This and situations of the like, sparked the Crimean War and as Kissinger opines, ultimately led to the collapse of the Metternich order, though it was never the intent of the participants.
Two New Revolutionaries : Napoleon III and Bismarck:
Kissinger comments on the nature of these two men, who played an odd role during the transitory period of Europe. Napoleon III’s, foreign policy had too short an outlook, making himself a prisoner of the tactical, and forgoing the strategic.
Bismarck had a confidence with which he acted on his own judgements — he knew exactly where Prussia’s opportunity lay. After all, he unified Germany so well, that it “survived defeat in two world wars, two foreign occupations, and two generations as a divided country.” However, he set in place a policy that would need a great man like him to carry it through, and that would be too formidable a task. As Kissinger states, “Bismarck sowed the seeds not only of his country’s achievements, but of its twentieth-century tragedies.”
Napoleon III left France strategically paralyzed; Bismarck left Germany with inopportune greatness.
Entrance of Realpolitik:
“Realpolitik — foreign policy based on calculations of power and the national interest — brought about the unification of Germany. And the unification of Germany caused Realpolitik to turn on itself, accomplishing the opposite of what it was meant to achieve” states Kissinger. These few lines say a lot.
With its unification, Germany became Europe’s top dog, and every decade its power kept growing. Power was now being exerted from the centre of Europe, a different reality. Bismarck’s style of diplomacy would leave a void when he was gone, and the only thing his successors could do to fill it were building arms and ultimately waging war. Near the end of the 19th century, the balance of power had reached its end.
Reemergence of the Vanquished:
“I hope that we may say that thus, this fateful morning, come to an end all wars.”, is what British PM David Lloyd George remarked, after the conclusion of WW1. However, reality was to be much different.
Kissinger states that “had European leaders continued the practices of the prewar international order, a compromise peace would have been made in the spring of 1915.” Offensives on each side had run their course, and stalemate prevailed on all fronts, however, the scale of the sacrifices stood in the way of any sensible compromise.
Of course what ended up happening, astonished both sides. Germany defeated Russia and weakened both France and England, but in the end America came with assistance and the Wester Allies emerged victorious.
But Kissinger notes that when it came to the Treaty of Versailles, the framers of the Treaty achieved exactly the opposite of what they had hoped. They tried to weaken Germany physically, and instead strengthened it strategically. When Germany decided (and it would) to disregard rules on rearmament, it emerged more powerful than ever.
Illusion No More:
I will not bother to rewrite anything further from up here onwards. Suffice it to say, much is known in contemporary times about the rise of Hitler. Catapulting himself into the German leadership, through his exceptional demagogic skill and what Kissinger notes as the “the instincts of an outcast and an unerring eye for psychological weaknesses, he shunted his adversaries from disadvantage to disadvantage, until they were thoroughly demoralized and ready to acquiesce to his domination”. By doing the same on the international level, to the nations and states whom put together the Treaty of Versailles, the world took another major turn.
The events and policies that followed WW2 — the Cold War, Containment policy, Vietnam, Triangular Diplomacy, Detente, and the plethora of American interventionism, all a part of Kissinger’s own years in government, I will not bother delving into.
Future Outlook:
The concluding remarks leave with an optimistic touch. International systems are in their very nature unstable, and their semblance of permanence seems to be shrinking every century. Each brings seemingly abrupt change, what had been taken for granted suddenly becomes a thing of the past: multinational states in the nineteenth century, colonialism in the twentieth.
Kissinger comments, that Wilsonian idealism produced a plethora of problems, mainly due to its failing to account for power relationships, and the effects of destabilization it causes.
The reach of international relations from the mid to late 20th century onwards extended to new lengths. It became a global game, not just continents in (relative) isolation.
Kissinger states that in the 21st century, American leaders would need to better articulate their public concept of national interest, as the US would be the defacto power player in several regions of the world, and as such, a clear definition of national interest would be required.
He also presciently noted that integrating Russia into the international system would be a key task. Stating “at this writing, it is impossible to tell which of the conceivable surging forces will be most dominant or most threatening, or in what combination: whether it will be Russia, China, or fundamentalist Islam.”
On China, he writes that “equality of status, a fierce insistence on not bowing to foreign prescription, is for Chinese leaders not a tactic but a moral imperative.” Kissinger opines that China would seek from the US a relationship of balance, a neighbor it considers both “powerful and covetous”. Attempt must not be made to publicly prescribe conditions on China, as this would be perceived in the wrong way.
Kissinger remarked that the US would find itself in a similar position of 19th century Europe, but on a global scale. His preferred outlook was a Metternich-ian like system, where a balance of power would need to be reinforced by a shared sense of values, and in present times these values would have to be democratic.
Kissinger ends on a fitting note, paying homage to Machado:
“Traveler, there are no roads. Roads are made by walking.”
