Book Review: World Order
World Order, by Henry Kissinger. New York: Penguin Press / London: Allen Lane, 2014. 432 pp, $36/£25 hardcover 9780241004265, £13.99 e-book 9780241004272
If any international relations scholar alive needs no introduction, Henry Kissinger is that person. After nearly two decades as a professor at Harvard University, his career included stints as U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary of State. Kissinger’s 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for helping to negotiate a temporary ceasefire during the Vietnam War preceded his advice to George W. Bush to take a more aggressive approach during Iraq War 2. Barack Obama subsequently received the same prize in 2009 before he correspondingly led the U.S. to almost unilaterally start Iraq War 3, notwithstanding eventual efforts to drag along allies upon his return from summer vacation. The incontrovertible links between the policies and models developed over the course of Kissinger’s sixty year career and the shortcomings seen in current policy today justify an especially close look at his latest book, World Order.
The recent decision to award Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay this year’s prize may improve the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s selection track record given no immediate indications that either new recipient will help to start any wars. Yet with Hillary Clinton’s position as the current frontrunner in the 2016 U.S. Presidential race, the book vividly demonstrates the future potential of Kissinger’s checkered policies. Per Clinton’s own review of World Order: “Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly, sharing astute observations about foreign leaders and sending me written reports on his travels … what comes through clearly in this new book is a conviction that we, and President Obama, share: a belief in the indispensability of continued American leadership in service of a just and liberal order.”
In keeping with Kissinger’s prior wide-ranging works like Diplomacy, this book offers a generous buffet of historic details that will keep even the most voracious international relations reader ingesting for many hours. But as with any buffet, extensive quantity does not necessarily correlate with quality. The prominent role that Kissinger played in shaping past world orders and in laying the foundation for legacy policy approaches that remain largely intact today further underscores the value of considering his most recent contribution through this lens.
Kissinger portrays different concepts of world order that align with European, Islamic, Chinese and American views of the world. The detailed descriptions of these respective frameworks focus primarily on vivid illuminations of regional and ideological differences. Yet they fail to include any serious attempt at collaborative solutions to the altercations that inevitably arise from the historic models he advocates. In this sense, the book does a great deal to further institutionalize and magnify existing problems rather than propose a path toward future solutions.
At the essence of the preferred model that Kissinger offers is the Westphalian system. A critical tenet of this system suggested that, “each state was assigned the attribute of sovereign power over its territory.” (p.3) Originally developed and maintained in Europe, according to his description the current so-called standard-bearer and champion of this system eventually became the U.S. after its guardianship was eventually handed down to Washington. But he shows remarkable myopia when accusing Stalin of “abandoning any notion of Westphalian principles” (p.281), while blithely ignoring the numerous instances of intervention and violation of state sovereignty that Kissinger fomented in his own career. He also somehow ignores the myriad examples, of which Iraq looms the largest and most recent, where America at his behest has dramatically undermined the very Westphalian principles he praises.
Both the core thesis of World Order and many of the fundamental mistakes found throughout reflect the essence of the Narcissistic Loony Tune School of Foreign Policy: the inclination of preeminent world order policemen to blame weaker parties for problems in the international system without consideration of their own roles in initiating these follies. Only in passing, Kissinger softly acknowledges the historic double standards on the part of U.S. leaders: “The implication that other nations had ‘selfish interests’ while America had ‘principles’ and ‘destiny’ was as old as the Republic.” (p.288)
The chapter on Iran includes additional prime examples of these problems and an associated lack of balance in his buffet. Although Kissinger provides several pages of description of and quotes from the relatively harder-line Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the more engagement-oriented President Hassan Rouhani who took office last year is not even mentioned. The same Editorial Board at the Washington Post which published Hillary Clinton’s glowing review of Kissinger’s World Order incorrectly opined last June that, “Mr. Rouhani, who has emerged as the default candidate of Iran’s reformists, will not be allowed to win.”
In the past, Kissinger has astutely noted that, “I personally feel much more comfortable with Ukraine in the European Union than with Ukraine being in NATO because the NATO membership produces a significant crisis with Russia which we maybe do not want to undertake.” But in this book double standards and inconsistencies abound in his homage to NATO, the 1949 creation he refers to as, “the capstone of the American-sponsored new international order.” (p.282) Meanwhile, George Kennan’s self-fulfilling prophecies of a “looming confrontation” with the Soviet Union at the start of the Cold War earned him a special distinction in Kissinger’s eyes: “No Foreign Service officer has ever shaped the U.S. debate over America’s world role to such an extent.”
In a recent private discussion, one long-standing member of the U.S. foreign policy establishment suggested to me that President Obama’s January 2014 assessment of ISIS as a “J.V. team” during an interview does not represent the core of today’s problems. In his view, the U.S.’s top foreign policy team were instead the ones playing at a junior varsity level. This book by the leading all-star coach in the champions league of Western foreign policy professionals exposes even greater challenges. Perhaps it may come as no surprise that the long-term coach of a troubled team finds it hard to acknowledge that the legacy game plans in his playbook might not work.
Despite its shortcomings, the book includes important contributions, such as Kissinger’s indirect illumination of primary sources of the problems in Ukraine today. Amidst many errors, his greatest insights may include the statement that: “Containment came to be equated with the construction of military alliances around the entire Soviet periphery.” (p.286) In this sense, it is particularly telling that the U.S. “assumed leadership of the global effort to contain Soviet expansionism” (p.287) during the first Cold War – a parallel role to what Russia has assumed today, particularly along its periphery.
The book reflects an often simplistic Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus-style separation and dichotomy. Yet it lacks sufficient consideration of ways that Westphalian adherents might eventually get what they want out of international relationships, let alone the required communication improvements that could actually enable success.
A responsible and clear-eyed analysis of World Order warrants a long book of its own to fully respond to the continued mistakes found throughout this book and similar volumes. Although outside the scope of this review, the value of such a future analysis could help to avoid a repeat of past blunders. While this book ostensibly aims to recommend pathways forward based on sound analysis and contemporary application of history, it unfortunately offers a weak defense of anachronistic policies that are failing the West broadly.
Carter W. Page is Founder and Managing Partner of Global Energy Capital LLC, an Adjunct Associate Professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs and Energy Fellow at the Center for National Policy in Washington.
