World Order
Henry Kissinger
Penguin Press
HC, 2014
Hardcover, 432
pages
ISBN-10:
1594206147
ISBN-13:
978-1594206146
List: $36.00
Amazon: $21.60
By Richard
Morchoe
From
the 1970s there was a joke that went as follows; Four men are
passengers in a plane; a hippie, an old priest, Gerald Ford and Henry
Kissinger. Suddenly the pilot announces, “The
plane is going down and the co-pilot and I are bailing out. There
are three parachutes for passengers. Good luck.”
Gerald
Ford takes one and says as he jumps, “As
president, I am entitled to a chute.”
Kissinger
grabs another and with Teutonic intonation states as he exits, “I
am der smartest person in der vurld, so dis ist mein.”
The
priest says to the hippie, “I
am an old man and have lived a long life. I am ready to meet my
maker. You take the third parachute.”
The
hippie replies, “Not
to worry, padre. The smartest man in the world just bailed out with
my knapsack.”
Henry
Kissinger did not evoke neutral emotions. He was either reviled or
admired. He served under presidents Nixon and Ford, first as
National Security adviser and then as Secretary of State. Few
holders of those officers ever seemed as dominant from the
rapprochement with China to the Paris negotiations ending the Vietnam
War.
Kissinger
was a departure from previous Secretaries of State. The office up
until his appointment had been the preserve of members of the Eastern
Establishment. We had never had an immigrant, let alone a refugee
hold the position. The Kissinger family had to flee Germany due to
National Socialist persecution of Jews.
He
saw service in and after World War II. Among other duties, while
only a private, the young soldier was placed in charge of a city. On
leaving the military, Kissinger attended Harvard, eventually earning
a doctorate.
After
teaching at his alma mater he went on to government service. Leaving
State, he would found Kissinger and Associates along with another
policy insider, Brent Scowcroft. It is a prosperous and influential
enterprise. Few turn down a phone call from Henry.
Kissinger
could have written an interesting autobiography. World
Order
is none of that. The author was wise not to use the word “New”
in the
title. It is a sober record of our nation’s
interaction with other countries. In many ways it is similar to
Angelo Codevilla’s
To
Make and Keep Peace Among Ourselves and with All Nations,
reviewed in this magazine’s
October 2014 issue. There is however a difference in emphasis as
evidenced by the titles.
The
book is a valuable resource as regards diplomatic history. We in the
West have been under the Westphalian system that arose out of the
peace conferences that ended the Thirty Years’
War in
the 1600s. The system is based on the respect each state had for
each other’s
sovereignty and the balance of power. Kissinger’s
explanation of that regime and how it is and is not working in the
contemporary world is excellent. That said, the book is not without
problems.
The
whole of Chapter 4 discusses Iran. It is an important topic as our
dealings with Persia go back not to the embassy takeover, but to the
early postwar period. This the author does not address, though he
does give a fair gloss of the history of that ancient land other than
that.
He
gives credit to the Iranians’
subtlety in pursuing foreign relations. Kissinger is concerned that
these world class negotiators are gaming the international system.
Through the talks over their nuclear program, he contends they
continue progress toward a weapon of mass destruction.
His
polemic is countered by The International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). On December 19th of last year, as
reported by Reuters, they have stated Iran is keeping to its
agreements and not enriching uranium to fissile level. That does not
mean Kissinger is wrong, but his tone is that what he is saying is
uncontested fact.
We
should not want a nuclear armed Iran, but there are two other
middle-eastern states in the nuclear club. One, Pakistan, is
arguably far more unstable than Iran. How much more sleep do we have
to lose?
The
section dealing with the Iraq and Afghan entanglements begins on Page
317 with; “After
an anguishing discussion of the "lessons of Vietnam,"
equally intense dilemmas recapitulated themselves three decades later
with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Both
conflicts had their
origins in a breakdown of international order.
For
America, both ended in withdrawal.”
It
would seem that Kissinger is not aware that such an admission is not
in any sense evidence that America can do the job of managing a world
order.
On
Page 322 he suggests that if the major powers can’t
guarantee Afghan neutrality as they did Belgium in the Nineteenth
Century, that country “is
likely to drag the world back into its perennial warfare.”
His
writing does not make the case. We got along well ignoring the place
until the Russians invaded and then we had to meddle. If we had
minded our business, the USSR would probably have still imploded and,
most certainly, The Twin Towers would not have fallen.
Yes,
Afghanistan may become a mess, not that it is paradise now, but it
only becomes our mess if we let it. Leaving and forgetting it would
be a better plan. Ignorance may not be bliss, but in this case, it
could be good strategy.
The
tone of the book is all too much, we have to do things, because we
have to. He does a good job of laying out the situation, but does
not provide a compelling reason for intervention.
When
Kissinger was the dominant foreign policy player, his most important
task was to extricate the country from Vietnam. It would have been
nice if we could have achieved “Peace
with honor” as
Nixon put it, but the big thing was leaving. We were as LBJ put it,
hunkering “down
like a jackass in
a hailstorm.”
We
couldn’t
stay forever and knew we had to go.
Kissinger
accomplished the mission and, yes the South fell. All the
predictions of the end of the world for us, however, did not come to
pass.
Maybe
that’s
the lesson about World Order that needed learning.
