"New York -- Eight years -- that's all the time Henry Kissinger was in public office. From January 1969 to January 1977, Mr. Kissinger was first national security adviser and secretary of state under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, holding both titles concurrently for more than two years. He was 53 when he cleared his desk at Foggy Bottom to make way for Cyrus Vance.
In the 4 1/2 decades since, he has worked as a consultant on strategic relations to governments around the world and consolidated beyond dispute his reputation -- first earned when he co-piloted the U.S. opening to China in 1972 -- as the pre-eminent philosopher of global order and the most original, erudite and hard-nosed statesman of his era.
Mr. Kissinger turns 100 on Saturday, and his appetite for the world he's spent a lifetime setting to rights is still zestful. We meet at his office four days before his birthday, and he offers swift proof not just of his charm but of his facility as a diplomat. "You never came to see me in my office," he scolds, reminding me of an invitation he'd made three years ago over dinner at the home of a common friend, my only previous meeting with Mr. Kissinger. I'd dismissed the invitation at the time as a grand old man's courtesy to a stranger.
The dinner was with Charles Hill, a onetime speechwriter for Mr. Kissinger and later a senior adviser to another secretary of state, George Shultz. The memory of Hill, who died in 2021, prompts Mr. Kissinger to offer an observation on Shultz, who lived to be 100 and also died in 2021.
Shultz's approach to international affairs was "really not the same as mine," Mr. Kissinger says. "He looked at the economic motivations. I look at the historical and moral motivations of the people involved."
What Mr. Kissinger sees when he looks at the world today is "disorder." Almost all "major countries," he says, "are asking themselves about their basic orientation. Most of them have no internal orientation, and are in the process of changing or adapting to the new circumstances" -- by which he means a world riven by competition between the U.S. and China. Big countries such as India, and also a lot of "subordinate" ones, "do not have a dominant view of what they want to achieve in the world." They wonder if they should "modify" the actions of the superpowers (a word Mr. Kissinger says he hates), or strive for "a degree of autonomy."
Some major nations have wrestled with these choices ever since the "debacle of the Suez intervention" in 1956. While Britain chose close cooperation with the U.S. thereafter, France opted for strategic autonomy, but of a kind "that was closely linked to the U.S. on matters that affected the global equilibrium."
The French desire to determine its own global policy gave rise to awkwardness with President Emmanuel Macron's recent visit to Beijing. While critics say he pandered to the Chinese, Mr. Kissinger sees an example of French strategic autonomy at work: "In principle, if you have to conduct Western policy, you would like allies that only ask you about what contribution they can make to your direction. But that is not how nations have been formed, and so I'm sympathetic to the Macron approach."
It doesn't bother him that Mr. Macron, on his return from Beijing, called on his fellow Europeans to be more than "just America's followers." Mr. Kissinger doesn't "take it literally." Besides, "I'm not here as a defender of French policy," and he appears to attribute Mr. Macron's words to cultural factors. "The French approach to discussion is to convince their adversary or their opposite number of his stupidity." The British "try to draw you into their intellectual framework and to persuade you. The French try to convince you of the inadequacy of your thinking."
And what is the American way? "The American view of itself is righteousness," says the man famed for his realpolitik. "We believe we are unselfish, that we have no purely national objectives, and also that our national objectives are achieved in foreign policy with such difficulty that when we expose them to modification through discussion, we get resentful of opponents." And so "we expect that our views will carry the day, not because we think we are intellectually superior, but because we think the views in themselves should be dominant. It's an expression of strong moral feelings coupled with great power. But it's usually not put forward as a power position."
Asked whether this American assertion of inherent unselfishness strikes a chord with other countries, Mr. Kissinger is quick to say: "No, of course not." Does Xi Jinping buy it? "No, absolutely not. That is the inherent difference between us." Mr. Xi is stronger globally than any previous Chinese leader, and he has "confronted, in the last two U.S. presidents," men who "want to exact concessions from China and announce them as concessions." This is quite the wrong approach, in Mr. Kissinger's view: "I think the art is to present relations with China as a mutual concern in which agreements are made because both parties think it is best for themselves. That's the technique of diplomacy that I favor."
In his reckoning, Joe Biden's China policy is no better than Donald Trump's: "It's been very much the same. The policy is to declare China as an adversary, and then to exact from the adversary concessions that we think will prevent it from carrying out its domineering desires."
Doesn't Mr. Kissinger see China as an adversary? He chooses his words carefully. "I see China, in the power it represents, as a dangerous potential adversary." He puts notable stress on the qualifier. "I think it may come to conflict. Here we have two societies with a global historic view, though different culture, confronting each other."
Mr. Kissinger contrasts his view from that of "others" who "start with a presumption of a permanent hostility, and therefore believe it must be confronted everywhere simultaneously on every issue that arises." Mr. Kissinger believes that "the two world wars should have taught that the price one pays even with conventional technology is out of proportion to most objectives that are achievable."
But with today's weapons, and with "the growth within each society through cyber and biology to intrude into the territory of the other, this kind of war will destroy civilization."
To prevent war with China, then, the U.S. needs to refrain from being heedlessly adversarial and pursue dialogue instead. "The most important conversation that can take place now is between the two leaders, in which they agree that they have the most dangerous capabilities in the world and that they will conduct their policy in such a way that the military conflict with them is reduced."
It sounds much like detente, the Cold War policy Mr. Kissinger pioneered. "On the American side," he says, "the danger is that in such discussions the belief will arise that China has changed fundamentally and that we are in permanent peace and can disarm -- and therefore become weak."
The peril of an "opposite course" is that "aberrations lead to total war. I'm supposed to be a realist. This is my realistic belief." Mr. Kissinger says that Charles Hill, who helped him write "World Order" (2014), would say that the Chinese position is "irremediable. But I say, even if that is true, we are best off getting into the position of conflict from having attempted every conceivable alternative other than appeasement. So this is not an appeasement doctrine."
Mr. Kissinger demurs when asked what concessions the U.S. might expect from China. "I'm not saying now which of their positions they should alter. I frankly don't look at it this way." We have, he concedes, "a problem" in the South China Sea. "I would see whether we can find some way of solving that within the 'freedom of the seas' formula. If we can't, then there will be confrontations."
He calls Taiwan "an insoluble problem" to which "there is no solution, other than time." He would therefore "welcome a formula that maintains the present status for a period of years in which, for example, the two sides will not issue threats against each other, or will limit their deployments against each other." This would have to be "carefully phrased, so that we don't say we are treating Taiwan as a country. But those are conceivable -- I'm not saying achievable -- objectives." Mr. Kissinger thinks Mr. Xi would be open to such discussions -- but "not if we come to him and say, 'You have to show us progress in the following 10 fields, after which we will reward you.' That will not work."
Asked to size up China's ambitions, he deadpans: "I don't think they desire to spread Chinese culture around the world." They seek "security," not world domination, but they do expect to be the dominant power in Asia. Would India and Japan be expected to accept that? "The ideal position," Mr. Kissinger says, "is a China so visibly strong that that will occur through the logic of events." He foresees that Japan, in response, "will develop its own weapons of mass destruction." He offers a time frame of "three, or five, or seven years" for that to happen. "I'm not urging it," he stresses, "and if you can, you should make that clear in your article. I'm trying to give you an analysis."
The free world depends on U.S. leadership -- as it has since the end of World War II. But Mr. Kissinger is worried. "We have no grand strategic view," he says of the U.S. "So every strategic decision has to be wrested out of a body politic that does not organically think in these categories." When the U.S. does adopt a strategy, it has a tendency to "go into it on the basis of overreaching moral principles, which we then apply to every country in the world with equal validity."
America has its strengths. When challenged, "the mobilization of resources to resist the challenge is comparatively easy." But threats are "interpreted in terms of physical conflict. So until such conflict approaches, it's harder to mobilize. And so to act on the basis of assessment and conjecture is harder in America than in comparable countries."
Mr. Kissinger does believe, however, that the Biden administration has done "many things" right. "I support them on Ukraine," he says. "From my perspective, the Ukraine conflict is won, in terms of precluding a Russian attack on allied nations in Europe. It is highly unlikely to occur again." But there are "other dangers that can rise out of Russia. As we are ending the conflict, we should keep in mind that Russia was a major influence on the region for hundreds of years, caught in its own ambivalence between admiration and feelings of inferiority or of danger coming from Europe." That ambivalence, he suggests, was behind this conflict: "I think the offer to put Ukraine into NATO was a grave mistake and led to this conflict. But its scale, and its nature, is a Russian peculiarity, and we were absolutely right to resist it."
He now believes that Ukraine -- "now the best-armed country in Europe" -- belongs in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. "I'm in the ironical position that I was alone when I opposed membership, and I'm nearly alone when I advocate NATO membership." He would like the terms of the conflict's end to include the return to Ukraine of all territory with the controversial exception of Crimea. "For Russia, the loss of Sevastopol, which was always not Ukrainian in history, would be such a comedown that the cohesion of the state would be in danger. And I think that's not desirable for the world after Ukraine."
Mr. Kissinger leaves no doubt that he believes in a Pax Americana and in the need "to defend the areas of the world essential for American and democratic survival." But the ability to "execute it politically," he says, "has declined sharply, and that is our overriding problem now." He ascribes this political weakness to a decline in belief in the U.S. in its own historical ambitions and institutions. "There's no element of pride and direction and purpose left," he laments, as American leaders grapple with angst generated by events of "300 years ago."
Alongside that, there isn't enough common purpose and principle across partisan divides. That weakens democratic resolve and the ability to act in the shared national interest. "Even in my day, it used to be possible to talk to groups of senators and not guarantee acceptance, but guarantee some willingness" to find common ground. A cross-partisan team like Harry S. Truman and Arthur Vandenberg -- a Democratic president and a Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, working together to rebuild Europe and win the Cold War -- would be all but improbable today.
Mr. Kissinger believes "that's what's needed," and that we have to find a way to re-create the older forms of patriotic collaboration. "There has to be something, some level, in which the society comes together on the needs of its existence."
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Mr. Varadarajan, a Journal contributor, is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and at New York University Law School's Classical Liberal Institute." [1]
1. The Weekend Interview with Henry Kissinger: The Great Strategist Turns 100. Varadarajan, Tunku.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 27 May 2023: A.11.
