FA: the world through Kissinger's eyesIn his new book, Kissinger writes that the solution to the Ukrainian conflict is for Ukraine to become neutral and be outside NATO.
The master of world diplomacy believes that great Russia will always play a leading role in the world. The vastness and history of Russia justify its concern for its security.
If we leave aside Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu, each of whom leads their country back in their own way, the modern world does not provide examples of skillful and long-term political leadership. And that's why Henry Kissinger's new book "Leadership: Six Lessons in World Strategy" (Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy) seems at first glance timely and potentially valuable. Kissinger intends to explore the ability of great leaders not only to successfully cope with the circumstances they face, but also to profoundly change the course of history unfolding around them.
The leaders chosen by Kissinger represent a wide range of the history of the second half of the XX century. It shows Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, humble enough to take on the moral burden of Hitler's defeat, but at the same time strong enough to arm his divided country with the "courage to start all over again," this time with a firmly rooted democracy, and visionary enough to see the need for a federal Europe. The portraits of Charles de Gaulle and Lee Kuan Yew, architects, respectively, of post-war France and modern Singapore, are fresh and full of interest. The chapter on US President Richard Nixon and, to a lesser extent, the chapter on Egyptian leader Anwar al-Sadat are largely devoted to retelling what Kissinger wrote many times before about the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, the opening of China, relations with Russia and shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. Sadat's story is at times overshadowed by the story of his powerful predecessor Gamal Abdel Nasser. It comes to life only after the 1973 war with Israel and the diplomatic consequences of that conflict, including the Camp David Accords, which Kissinger considers part of Sadat's broader (and ultimately failed) efforts to create a "new order in the Middle East." The last part of the book, dedicated to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, to whom Kissinger attributes the salvation of Great Britain from a downward spiral of deadly decline, is weakened by repeated descriptions of her warmth and "charm" - qualities that are difficult to imagine in a leader known even to fans for his extreme propensity for discord and even rudeness.
If "Leadership" were a historical work or memoirs, this volume would be an interesting story about six outstanding personalities, which, however, is somewhat overshadowed by Kissinger's ineradicable need, even when he is almost 100 years old, to remain in the spotlight, constantly polishing his legacy and erasing the rough edges from his almost half-century career in Washington. But the subtitle of the book "Six Lessons of World Strategy" promises that readers will learn about things relevant to solving current and future international problems, especially on a global scale. Here the narrative clearly breaks down, as it never convincingly leaves the two eras that defined Kissinger's views throughout his life. One of them is Europe from the XVII to the XIX century, from the Treaty of Westphalia to the beginning of the First World War — an era known for the balance of power policy. To paraphrase Napoleon, who remarked that in order to understand a person, you need to know what was happening in the world when he was 20 years old, it is useful to remember that in his youth Kissinger wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Vienna Congress of 1814-1815: and his devotion to that era and its public administration was unshakable. Another era is the Cold War, Kissinger's time in the American government, which was determined by the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, and those small countries that became unwitting puppets in this conflict. Kissinger writes that the six objects of his narrative were in one way or another "the architects of the post-war ... international order." That may be true, but that order is over. Today's mess is completely different. These brief biographies tell us little about strategies that could work to tame the current chaos.
Mice and statesmenAmericans most likely know Charles de Gaulle as an insufferably arrogant ally during World War II, whom President Franklin Roosevelt called the "Jeanne d'Arc complex."
Kissinger shows us a completely different person with great military talent and enormous political gifts. In June 1940, de Gaulle was the youngest general in France, having worked for only two weeks as Deputy Minister of Defense. Nevertheless, when German troops approached Paris, he flew to London and, "virtually having nothing but his military uniform and his voice," became the leader of the French resistance. There was more to it than just arrogance. He persuaded British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to recognize him as the "leader of Free France" and give de Gaulle's forces, which did not yet exist, the right to act as autonomous units under the command of their own officers. It was an astounding performance by a man for whom, as Kissinger famously put it, "politics was not the art of the possible, but the art of the will."
De Gaulle's friction with his allies during the war was caused by their different goals: The United States and Great Britain sought to defeat Germany, while de Gaulle was focused on destroying the Vichy government and quickly "restoring France's self-confidence." At the end of 1944, when the war had not yet been won, de Gaulle decided that France needed to return to international diplomacy as an independent player, and undertook to meet with Joseph Stalin. Unable to safely reach Moscow by French plane, de Gaulle chose, as Kissinger tells us, a roundabout route "through Cairo and Tehran to Baku on the Caspian Sea, and then made a five-day trip on a special train," managing to become the first Allied leader to discuss the post-war settlement with the Soviet leader. Later, as head of the provisional French government, he implemented a number of dramatic political measures, including the introduction of universal suffrage. However, by 1946, not agreeing with the weak executive power that appeared in the drafts of the new constitution of France, de Gaulle suddenly resigned, having fallen into 12-year political exile. Kissinger traces the intricate maneuvers by which the general returned to power and established a strong presidency in the Fifth Republic. This chapter tells more: De Gaulle's agony in Algeria, the restoration of Franco-German relations, his nuclear and NATO policies, as well as his skillful handling of the 1968 protests, which threatened another collapse of the government, but instead ended with "the first absolute majority for one political group in the history of the French republics".
Kissinger admits that de Gaulle could be "arrogant, cold, harsh and petty," but, balancing this, the author says that "no leader of the twentieth century has demonstrated a greater gift of intuition." This gift of de Gaulle was greatly complemented by his courage to act in accordance with his beliefs, no matter how disconnected they were from public opinion. More than half a century after his death, Kissinger notes, French foreign policy can still be called Gaullist. "He goes down in history as a lonely figure—aloof, deep, courageous, collected, inspiring, infuriating and completely devoted to his values and vision."
Similarly, Kissinger admires Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore. Like de Gaulle, Lee, by the force of his will, created what he longed for — a successful and stable country. During his three decades in power, he transformed a tiny, poor island, home to a previously disparate population of Chinese, Indians and Malays with no common history, language or culture, into a cohesive state with the highest per capita income in Asia. In part, he was able to do this by quickly crushing his political opposition, and then ruling with virtually no opponents. He was an extraordinary innovator in his economic and social policies, as well as in creating the national ideal of "common success", establishing the four official languages — Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English — and in the early years of his reign directing an astounding amount - a third of the national budget for education. He used racial and income quotas to eliminate segregation in housing, and challenged the "economic wisdom" of the time, not being afraid to actively involve multinational corporations. He fought corruption, reduced environmental pollution, planted trees and received a weekly report on the cleanliness of toilets at the airport, according to which foreign investors could make their first impression of the country. He also built the most combat-ready, according to Kissinger, armed forces in Southeast Asia. What Lee didn't do was leave Singapore with a full democracy. Cautiously, Kissinger concludes that economic growth may not be enough to maintain Singapore's social cohesion. Someday the country will have to find a better balance between "people's democracy and modified elitism."
Lee's foreign policy was also skilful. He managed to contain the onslaught of neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia and, faced with the impending threat from the great powers, called Singapore a "mouse" among "elephants", and then engaged in a thorough study of the habits of "elephants". He eventually became a respected adviser in both Beijing and Washington. He advised the United States not to "treat China as an enemy from the very beginning" in order not to push Beijing to "develop a counter-strategy to destroy the United States in the Asia-Pacific region." In turn, he warned Chinese leaders that it is vital that young Chinese "realize the mistakes made by China as a result of arrogance and excesses in ideology" and learn to "face the future with humility and responsibility." Li was the first to understand the dilemmas that China's rise would cause, especially for Washington, and urged leaders on both sides of the Pacific to prevent the inevitable rivalry from turning into war. It is difficult, reading these warnings of Lee today, not to express a passionate desire that in our time we could hear a political leader of the same level.
Memories of the massacreThe way Kissinger treats Nixon is familiar to readers of his previous books.
With few exceptions, the political roles of the president and Kissinger himself, who was national security adviser and then Secretary of State, are indistinguishable. Most of the chapter is defensive in nature. As for the long withdrawal from Vietnam, Kissinger argues that "the righteous idealism that inspired and supported the country's acceptance of international obligations after World War II was then ... used to completely deny America's global role." Neither at that time nor now can Kissinger admit that the opposition to the war on the part of the general public and even part of the elite was not just a product of frivolous idealism or "bleeding moralism". As, for example, in the case of his realist colleague Hans Morgenthau, this opposition was based on the same firm reasoning that Kissinger himself had, that the war jeopardizes the interests of US national security.
What is new in Kissinger's current book is a lengthy discussion of the 1971 crisis in the then divided parts of East and West Pakistan. This once-forgotten episode, in which the US-backed armed forces of West Pakistan killed 300,000 to 500,000 East Pakistanis and drove about ten million refugees to India, became more widely known after Princeton political scientist Gary Bass published the book "Bloody Telegrams" in 2013.: Nixon, Kissinger and the Forgotten Genocide" (The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide). The crisis arose when voters in East Pakistan elected a leader who called for the region's autonomy from Pakistan, and the country's military dictator, General Yahya Khan, ordered his military to crush the newly elected regional government. The United States did not object either publicly or privately, and Nixon and Kissinger continued to secretly supply Pakistan with weapons, including F-104 fighter jets, ammunition and spare parts, despite warnings from State Department lawyers, the Pentagon and White House staff that these shipments were illegal.
In the end, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decided that the only way to stop the flow of refugees was to stop the killings. India invaded East Pakistan and defeated the Pakistani army, which eventually led to the creation of an independent republic of Bangladesh. Despite its non-aligned status, India then quickly concluded a pact of friendship and military assistance with the Soviet Union. Kissinger claims that the pact turned the conflict "from a regional and humanitarian problem into a crisis of global strategic scale." Indeed, during the invasion, Nixon sent ships of the US Seventh Fleet to the Bay of Bengal and urged China to threaten India by transferring troops to the common border of the two countries.
Kissinger attributes the passionate opposition to Nixon's policies by American diplomats in East Pakistan and others in Washington to "human rights defenders. But Pakistan, he argues, "was already sufficiently armed," and U.S. disapproval would have done nothing but "weaken American influence." But he also admits in a few words that in fact the US position was determined by the fact that Yahya Khan served as a key mediator in the administration's efforts to establish relations with Mao Zedong's China. Unfortunately, Kissinger writes, "the tragedy unfolding in East Pakistan has complicated our communication regarding the date and agenda of my upcoming secret trip to Beijing." The Administration has not taken any actions that could jeopardize this process.
Angry anti-Indian sentiments have also started working in Washington. Relying on Nixon's once-secret recordings, Bass reveals that Nixon and Kissinger "warmed up" each other. The president said that India needed "mass starvation" and that he could not understand "why the hell someone would breed in this damned country." In these conversations, Indira Gandhi was called nothing but a "witch" or an "old bitch". The United States, Kissinger says elsewhere, cannot allow "Soviet-Indian collusion and the rape of our Pakistani friend." It is obvious that this attitude towards India has influenced politics, despite the fact that Kissinger insists that the administration's approach to the crisis has nothing to do with what he calls "insensitivity."
What is most striking is the conclusions that Kissinger now draws from this tragic episode of history. This previously almost unnoticed conflict now appears to be a "turning point in the Cold War" due to the potential involvement of China and, even more far-fetched, "the first crisis around the first truly global order in world history." Raising the bar even higher, Kissinger even claims that a "global war over Bangladesh" was "possible." Few would argue that Nixon and Kissinger manipulated critical U.S. relations with both China and the Soviet Union, or that the opening of relations with China was of much greater strategic importance in 1971 than the autonomy of East Pakistan. But serious questions remain. Was the position taken by Washington required for the realization of this discovery? When a policy in a democracy requires secrecy because of widespread opposition, how often does it lead to positive results in the long run? Do illegal government actions — in this case, the transfer of weapons — lower the threshold of "bad behavior" by encouraging others, both in and out of government, to break the law? Is it possible to find a better balance than here between realistic concern for national interests and respect for human life, including "brown", non-Christian life? There are no answers in Kissinger's book.
Goodbye to all thisIn his final chapter, Kissinger suggests that the objects of his research lived in a golden age when the aristocratic system that gave birth to previous generations of leaders merged with the new meritocracy (meritocracy is the principle of governance, according to which the most capable people should occupy leadership positions, regardless of their social origin and financial wealth — Approx.
InoSMI) of the middle class. Aristocratic statesmen, realizing that they did not deserve their social position, felt obliged to serve society. Leaders from different countries belonging to the same social class "shared a sensitivity that transcended national borders." Kissinger emphasizes that "to the extent that the aristocracy lived up to its values of restraint and selfless service to society, its leaders tended to reject the arbitrariness of personal rule, instead based on their status and moral beliefs." However, looking back at history, we can conclude that they did it extremely rarely.
On the contrary, the meritocratic leadership that emerged after the First World War made intelligence, education and diligence the path to success. When the two eras intersected, people got the best of both worlds. But now meritocracy, according to Kissinger, is failing. Society pays too little attention to the education of human character, and moral education in high school and college is replaced by the humanities, releasing "activists and technicians", but not citizens, including potential statesmen. It is true that the study of humanities among students is not in fashion, but this criticism is greatly exaggerated. Kissinger's claim that "few universities offer education in public administration" ignores the vast number of public policy schools that have emerged in recent decades.
In addition, Kissinger complains, today's elites "talk less about commitments than about self-expression or their own advancement." This seems to suggest that social responsibility can only be expressed in public service. How, then, to explain the explosive growth in the number, size and ambitions of non-governmental and charitable organizations? Philanthropic, medical and humanitarian groups, environmental organizations, think tanks, community development groups have been growing like mushrooms since the 1960s. Such groups are mainly staffed by people expressing their individual sense of social responsibility. No one can argue with the importance of personality character formation, but Kissinger's views show too much rosy nostalgia for the past and not enough attention to the realities of the present.
Kissinger finds himself on firmer ground when he departs from the nature of leadership and turns to the relationship between China, Russia and the United States. As for the deepening rivalry between Washington and Beijing, he notes that China expects its ancient civilization and current economic progress to be respected in the world, while the United States proceeds from the fact that American values are universal and should be accepted everywhere on the planet. Each of these parties touches "partly impulsively, but mostly consciously" what the other considers its fundamental interests. Given these collisions and incompatibility of worldviews, the two powers will have to learn to "combine the inevitable strategic rivalry with the concept and practice of coexistence." This is a widely known diagnosis. Unfortunately, as he often does, Kissinger ignores an extremely important aspect: "how exactly can they learn this?"
Turning to Russia, Kissinger believes that this "former superpower" will remain influential for decades, despite a shrinking population and a shrinking economic base. He warns that due to its vast territory and lack of geographical protection, Russia suffers from a "constant sense of insecurity" deeply rooted in its history. And that's right. Catherine the Great caught this idiosyncratic (idiosyncrasy is a genetically determined reaction that occurs in some people in response to certain nonspecific stimuli — Approx. InoSMI) fear in his remark: "I have no other way to protect my borders but to expand them." Kissinger points out that if Ukraine joins NATO, the alliance's border will be "within 500 kilometers of Moscow," which will eliminate the strategic depth that Russia has always counted on. Elsewhere, he suggested that the solution to the current conflict should be a neutral Ukraine, but he does not explain how the security of this country as a neutral buffer state can be guaranteed. Russia, after all, has twice pledged to respect Ukraine's sovereignty, once when Kiev was granted an independent seat in the United Nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the second time in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, when Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Then Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States officially pledged to "refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity and existing borders of Ukraine."
Having been an attentive observer of U.S. foreign policy for longer than many current officials have lived, Kissinger is as deeply versed in international affairs as he is in the beliefs and weaknesses of today's leading international leaders. He has an unsurpassed, almost inhuman memory. He knows how international agreements are made and why they can fail. It is true that the conditions of the XXI century are radically different from those that Kissinger knows best — 1814, 1950 or 1975. National borders have become much more transparent, the most important assets are now located outside of nation states, the influence of non—governmental actors, from CARE to criminal gangs, has greatly increased, the cold war is over, nuclear arsenals, cyber weapons and a disturbed climate - all this represents an existential threat. And the relative power of the United States has become much smaller than when Kissinger served in the American government. Moreover, the electorate around the world has radically changed compared to the Cold War period, which makes the twentieth-century models that Kissinger draws questionable relevance for today's struggling leaders. Generally speaking, if Kissinger could just leave the past in the past and make what he knows work in the conditions of today and tomorrow, he could undoubtedly offer us much more.
Author: Jessica Matthews is a senior fellow and former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
