Next week in Globes Culture – a recommendation for Kissinger’s new book “Leadership”
At the age of 99, Henry Kissinger publishes his 19th book, “Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy”. It is an analysis of the vision and historical achievements of a unique pantheon of leaders who acted after World War II: Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwar Sadat, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher.
In the 1950s, “before I got involved in politics,” Kissinger told me in his office in the heart of Manhattan on a steamy July day, “the plan was to write a book about peacemaking and peacemaking in the 19th century, beginning with the Congress of Vienna. It did become a book, Then I had about another third of a book dealing with Bismarck, which was supposed to end with the outbreak of the First World War.” The new book, he says, “is a kind of continuation. It’s not just a contemporary look.”
All six figures that are the subject of the book “Leadership”, says Kissinger, former Secretary of the State Department and National Security Advisor, were shaped by what he calls “the Second Thirty Years’ War” (the period from 1914 to 1945), and contributed to the shaping of the world as seen in its aftermath . All of them combined, according to Kissinger, between two prototypes of leadership: the far-seeing pragmatism of the statesman, and the visionary boldness of the prophet.
When asked if he could think of a contemporary leader in whom such a combination of qualities exists, he replied “No. I would also make the reservation that although de Gaulle had it, he perceived himself that way, in the case of Nixon, probably Sadat, or even Adenauer, it was impossible to know at the stage Early. On the other hand, none of these people were essentially tactical. They mastered the art of tactics, but when they entered office, their thoughts were focused on some vocation.”
The pursuit of balance
It is impossible to enter into a long conversation with Kissinger without this word – vocation – coming up. And there is another term: equilibrium. Since the 1950s, when he was a scholar at Harvard University who wrote about nuclear strategy, Kissinger understood diplomacy as a balancing act between powerful forces under the dark shadow of the potential for nuclear holocaust.
In his opinion, the apocalyptic capability of modern weapons technology has made the need to maintain a balance between opposing forces, however difficult, the most important thing in international relations.
“In my thinking, equilibrium is made up of two components,” Kissinger said. “It’s a kind of balance of power, including accepting the legitimacy of values that are sometimes in conflict with each other. If you believe that the end result of your efforts must be the application of your values, I don’t think you can achieve equilibrium. So one level is a kind of absolute equilibrium.”
The second level, according to him, is “equilibrium in behavior, that is, a limitation in the use of your abilities and power in relation to what is necessary to preserve the general equilibrium.” Achieving this combination requires “a talent that is almost at an artistic level. The statesmen did not necessarily aim for exactly such a result, because the exercise of rule is possible in so many directions without being destructive, that states have never felt an obligation to do so.”
Kissinger recognizes that balance, however necessary, cannot be a value in itself. “There may be situations where coexistence is morally impossible,” he says. “For example, Hitler. With Hitler there was no point in discussing equilibrium – although I have a certain sympathy for Chamberlain, if he thought he had to buy time for a confrontation, which would be inevitable at the very least (translator’s note: referring to the Munich Committee).”
Directionless leadership
In “Leadership” there is a hint of Kissinger’s hope that American statesmen today might learn a lesson from their predecessors. “I think that in the current period there is a huge difficulty in defining a direction,” says Kissinger. “There is a reactivity to the emotion of the given moment.”
The Americans refuse to separate the concept of diplomacy from the idea of ”personal relations with the adversary”. They tend to look at negotiations in missionary rather than psychological terms, says Kissinger, and seek to convert or condemn those in front of them – instead of deeply understanding their thinking.
Kissinger says that the world today is facing a dangerous imbalance: “We are on the brink of war against Russia and China over issues that we are partly responsible for creating, with no idea how it will end or where it will lead.”
Can the US deal with its two rivals as it was in the Nixon years? He does not have a simple prescription for this. “You cannot simply say: now we will separate them, and turn them against each other. All that can be done is not to accelerate tensions and create opportunities, and for that we need some kind of designation.”
Regarding Taiwan (which is in a constant state of tension with China and at the same time is strengthening its ties with the US – translator’s note), Kissinger fears that the US and China are moving towards a crisis, and he advises Washington to behave with moderation. “The policies promoted by both sides enabled and enabled Taiwan to become an autonomous democratic entity, and preserved the peace between China and the United States for 50 years. We have to be very careful, therefore, when taking steps that seem likely to change this basic structure.”
Kissinger visiting China in 2019 / Photo: Associated Press, Jason Lee
The Ukrainian issue
Earlier this year Kissinger caused an uproar when he suggested that careless policies by the US and NATO may have led to the crisis in Ukraine. For him, one cannot help but take Vladimir Putin’s stated security concerns seriously, and in his opinion NATO made a mistake when it signaled to Ukraine that it had a chance to join the alliance.
“I thought that Poland – and all the traditional Western countries that were part of Western history – were logical members of NATO,” Kissinger says. But Ukraine, in his opinion, is a collection of territories that were once associated with Russia and that the Russians see as their own, although “some Ukrainians” do not See it this way.
In the name of stability, it would be better for Ukraine to act as a sort of buffer between the West and Russia: “I was in favor of full independence for Ukraine, but I thought the best role for it would be something like Finland.”
Today, says Kissinger, the die has already been cast. After the way Russia behaved in Ukraine, “I believe, one way or another, officially or not, that Ukraine should be treated as a member of NATO.”
Still, he foresees an arrangement that would leave the Russians with profits from their first invasion in 2014, when they occupied the Crimean peninsula and parts of the Donbass region, although he has no answer to the question of how such an arrangement would differ from the agreement signed eight years ago that failed to end the conflict.
The moral argument placed by Ukraine’s democracy and independence – since 2014, a clear majority of the country’s citizens have supported membership in the European Union and NATO – and the bitter fate of the people under Russian occupation, do not sit easily on the statesman’s side of Kissinger’s thinking. If avoiding nuclear war is the goal Ultimately, what does the world owe to small countries whose only role in the global balance is to be subject to the power of larger countries?
A boy in a Ukrainian school destroyed by a Russian bomb / Photo: Associated Press, Leo Correa
“How to maximize our military capability and our strategic goals,” Kissinger thinks aloud. “And how to link these to our moral vocation – this is an unsolved problem.”
Looking back on a long and sometimes controversial career, Kissinger does not engage in self-criticism. When asked if he has any regrets about his years in office, he replied “I have to memorize some excellent answer to this question, because it is always asked.” But while he may rethink some tactical moments, overall, he says, “I don’t bother myself with things that could have been done differently.”
Henry Kissinger
personal: 99 years old, remarried to Nancy, father of two. Lives in Connecticut and New York City alternately
professional: Served as US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and played a significant role in the formation of US foreign policy in the 1970s
Something else: In 1973 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the Vietnam War. The award was controversial, and two members of the decision-making committee resigned in protest