Review Essays

Oh Henry! Kissinger and His Critics

By Walter A. McDougall

*Diplomacy*. By Henry Kissinger. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 912 pp.
$35.00.)

"The cunning writer will choose an indefinable subject," wrote William Sydney Porter—*nom d'plume* O. Henry—"for he can then set down his theory of what it is; and next, at length, his conception of what it is not."¹ But Dr. Henry Kissinger, whose cunning no one disputes, lacks the freedom to define his own subject and expect his theories to be received dispassionately. It is not because Dr. Kissinger cannot write a normal book, but because he cannot be a normal author.

We all seem to *care* about Kissinger whether or not (as Walter Russell Mead has it) we all love or loathe him.² And there is no denying the grip that Kissinger still exerts, two decades after leaving government, on all Americans concerned with foreign policy. If you doubt that, consider the rapt attention accorded his testimony by Congressional committees, the presidential requests for consultations, the networks' open invitations for airtime, and the liverish reception his books unfailingly receive from the academic establishment to which he once belonged.

¹ O. Henry, "The Country of Elusion," in *Selected Stories*, ed. Guy Davenport (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), p. 58.

² Walter Russell Mead, "Peace Keepers and Power Brokers," *The Washington Post Book World*, Apr. 3, 1994, pp. 3, 14.

Fall 1994 | 1

## Review Essays

Perhaps Kissinger's notoriety is born of the fact that he is the only secretary of state to achieve not only fame, but "glamour."³ Perhaps it is because he offered us hope that America could cope during an era when everything, home and abroad, seemed to be spinning out of control. Perhaps it is because the man radiates an aura of secrecy and brilliance to some and Strangelovian devilry to others. But, no one suggests that Henry is passé. No one passé writes books that split the reviewers like a maul splits fresh oak.

That is why one cannot do justice to an event such as the publication of *Diplomacy*, except by reviewing the reviewers (predictably, the most distinguished lot of dons and pundits of international relations) as well as the book itself. A quarterly journal such as *Orbis* affords the chance to do just that. To be sure, reviewing the reviewers risks offending half a dozen senior colleagues in my own profession. But I take courage in the advice of Helmuth von Moltke, who instructed his Prussian lieutenants: First reckon, then risk.

## Henry's History

Some 5 percent of Kissinger's 835-page *Diplomacy* is devoted to current world affairs. Like Paul Kennedy in *The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers*,⁴ Kissinger obliges readers to wade through a long historical narrative before arriving at the contemporary payoff. Otherwise, the Kennedy and Kissinger books could not be more different. Whereas Kennedy explained the rise and fall of powers in terms of economic forces and an almost mechanical tendency of empires to overextend themselves, Kissinger accounts for the twists of time in terms of statesmen's personalities, ideas, and skills. So it is that Kissinger credits Cardinal Richelieu for discarding a European politics of universalism and religiosity in favor of *raison d'etat*, William III for promoting the concept of the balance of power, and Klemens Fürst von Metternich for understanding the need for a community of values to underpin (or overlay) the balance.

And so it is that Ernest R. May, Charles Warren Professor of History at Harvard, has reviewed *Diplomacy* under the title "The 'Great Man' Theory of Foreign Policy." Not to put too fine a point on it, May tries to bury Kissinger. He begins by describing *Diplomacy* as "a book of maxims disguised as a history of statecraft. The maxims are often splendid. The history is not." He ends by expressing his disappointment that Kissinger, who once wrote "good professional history," has "little or no sense of how diplomacy and

³ Robert W. Tucker, "Masterwork," *The National Interest*, Summer 1994, pp. 78-87: "[Glamour's] one common denominator is the ability to evoke fascination. This Kissinger has done in abundance" (p. 78).

⁴ Paul Kennedy, *The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000* (New York: Random House, 1987).

2 | Orbis

## Review Essays

statecraft evolved." As a result, Kissinger's *Diplomacy* (if not his diplomacy) is
"amateurish."⁵

May is right that Kissinger ignores long-range forces in international affairs, but he does not suggest what those economic, technological, ideological, or social forces might be. Instead, he wastes valuable inches of ink in two vain pursuits. The first is to indict Kissinger for admiring every statesman who eschewed vain moralizing in favor of realpolitik, be they authoritarians like Metternich and Otto von Bismarck, or tyrants like Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler. May's second pursuit is to tick off alleged factual errors, the sort, he says, "for which students fail to get pass degrees in history." But all that May offers are three allegations regarding who coined a campaign slogan from Britain's "khaki election" of 1918, which generals attended Hitler's harangue recounted in the Hossbach Memorandum, and whether or not Wilsonian self-determination put Europeans on "unfamiliar terrain."

Kissinger must have fumed at having to check such trivial points, but his letter of rebuttal to the *Times* not only parries May's "nitpicking," but exposes an embarrassing error on May's part. On the larger issue, Kissinger quotes himself to the effect that Stalin was a "monster" and Hitler's advent to power "one of the greatest calamities in world history," by way of refuting the charge that "I never met a dictator I did not like." Kissinger concludes in withering fashion: "Professor May has done significant historical research in the past; it is therefore not possible to consider his comments as inadvertent."⁶

May in turn dismisses the charge that his review was motivated by "personal animus" and lunges at Henry's open flank: his reputation for amoral diplomacy. What his review really stressed, writes May, is Kissinger's "new insistence that political leaders must respect values as well as power." And with this, we have leaped out of the pages of the book and into history. While this dig may be lost on youngsters, those who faced the Nixon administration from the other side of the barricades will say "touché." May then tries to turn Kissinger's prominence against him. Even minor errors are significant in a Kissinger book because, May argues, his name on the cover is equivalent to "a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval." How sad, therefore, that "Thousands of readers may think 'Diplomacy' an authoritative history...."

What are we to make of this fur-fight in the pages of *The New York Times*? Is May one of Mead's Kissinger-loathers? Were they rivals years ago at Harvard? Or have certain of Kissinger's old colleagues never forgiven him for "selling out": for grasping power and glory beyond the dreams of any professor, siding with the likes of Nixon, approving of the invasion of Cambodia and the Christmas bombing of Hanoi, ordering the wiretapping of

⁵ *The New York Times Book Review*, Apr. 3, 1994, pp. 3, 24. Newspapers today, led by the *The New York Times* and *The Washington Post*, shamelessly ignore official publication dates in an effort to scoop competitors with the first notice of major new releases. In this case, the *Times* and *Post* ran a dead heat.

⁶ Henry A. Kissinger, Letter to the Editor, *The New York Times Book Review*, Apr. 24, 1994, p. 31. May had faulted Kissinger for failing to mention Harold Nicolson's excellent book, also titled *Diplomacy*, whereas, in fact, Kissinger cites Nicolson in a footnote and on the copyright page.

⁷ Ernest R. May, Letter to the Editor, *The New York Times Book Review*, May 1, 1994, p. 35. Emphasis added.

Fall 1994 | 3

[LJ]

## Review Essays

associates—and then cashing in on his infamy through a private consultancy that yields him an income estimated at $7.5 million per year?

Walter Isaacson's recent biography of Kissinger records that in May 1970, after the Cambodian incursion, a distinguished Harvard delegation visited Henry in Washington. May was among them; as dean of the college, he was a target of protesters. Nixon's policies were "tearing the country apart domestically," said May. Kissinger replied that Cambodia was a tactical, not a moral question; that, in effect, the administration had bigger fish to fry and a larger moral purpose in mind. "The meeting completed my transition from the academic world," said Kissinger; May and the others "left embittered."⁸

Whatever May's motives for panning *Diplomacy*, he missed the chance to make a constructive critique of Kissinger's history. Stanford University professor emeritus Gordon Craig missed his chance, too, but because he was too kind. Craig's main contention is that Kissinger's title is a misnomer. The book is not really about the practice of diplomacy as it evolved from fifteenth-century Venice to the present. Echoing the post-World War I generation of statesmen, he laments the decline of Europe's tradition of professional statecraft and decries "that worst of all diplomatic inventions, the summit conference." But, having unburdened himself, Craig forgives Kissinger for ignoring institutional history in order "to concentrate on the search for international order and upon the statesmen who, like himself, sought to establish systems that would preserve it, and he has accomplished this with great skill and shrewdness." Granting Henry the right to this delimited province, Craig concludes that "Kissinger's account leaves nothing to be desired...."⁹

At one level, therefore, professional judgments of Kissinger's history turn on the "great man" assumption that undergirds it. Simon Schama likes the assumption, but is bothered by its implementation. *Diplomacy* "is an unrepentantly old-fashioned book," he writes, "a narrative of great men and events, studded with epigrams and lapidary utterances on the practice of power."¹⁰ Such an approach "needs no apology" because peoples and ideas do matter, and politics is the stuff of irony, unintended consequences, and contingency. Moreover, history is the best school for contemporary statesmen, who would do well to recognize that realism without a moral compass, and moralizing in the absence of calculus, are equally vain.

The trouble, according to Schama, is that Kissinger doesn't always know his great men well enough. For instance, Richelieu, far from jettisoning Catholicism for an amoral *raison d'etat* (as Kissinger has it), believed that "what is done for the state is done for God." To be sure, he made alliances with Protestant princes and fought to maintain France against Catholic Hapsburg "hegemony," but Richelieu never stopped thinking of Protestants as

⁸ Walter Isaacson, *Kissinger. A Biography* (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), pp. 280–81.

⁹ Gordon Craig, "Looking for Order," *The New York Review of Books*, May 12, 1994, pp. 8–14.

¹⁰ Simon Schama, "The Games of Great Men," *The New Yorker*, May 2, 1994, pp. 92–97. See also Timothy Garton Ash, "The Rules of the Game," *The New Republic*, July 18, 1994, pp. 41–43.

4 | Orbis

## Review Essays

heretics, and he fashioned policy partly to enable the Bourbons to stamp out
the Huguenots at home.

> Diplomacy tells us much not only about the past, but about history as a craft, about Kissinger himself, and (through our reactions to it) about ourselves.

Kissinger also errs, according to Schama, by contrasting Europe's power-political tradition to an idealistic American one. America, after all, was a creation of early modern Europe, and the notions we associate with American exclusivism trace their roots back to Europe's own quest for an alternative to balance of power—from the just war theory of the medieval church to Hugo Grotius's invention of international law in seventeenth-century Netherlands to the British promoters of a League to Enforce Peace. Michael Howard, the retired Robert A. Lovett Professor at Yale, also wonders how Kissinger can be so "curiously blind to what was happening in Britain in the nineteenth century. . . . Gladstone was the voice of the future . . . the true avatar of Woodrow Wilson."¹¹ But Kissinger says exactly that on page 161, and, as we shall see below, his sense of what is European by tradition and what is truly American is subtler than either Schama or Howard suggest.

So, is *Diplomacy* "good history" or not? That depends not on a few errors of fact—which any nine-hundred-page book is bound to contain—but on the strength of its interpretations in light of the facts. And there are at least some questionable interpretations.

I do not agree, for example, with Kissinger's twice-stated remark that the United States did not consider its westward expansion to be "foreign policy" at all. Manifest Destiny publicists may have believed as much, but Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, James Polk, and William Henry Seward knew better. I think Kissinger claims too much for *raison d'etat* as a cause for the Bourbon ascendancy, exaggerates the self-consciousness of Britain's balance-of-power policy, and ignores popular nationalism and the Zollverein (customs union) in his explanation of German unification.

Moving to the twentieth century, Kissinger's portrait of Stalin strikes me as too confident, given the mysteries that still surround that era, and he is too ready to believe that Stalin was "the supreme realist—patient, shrewd, and implacable" (p. 333). One can argue from the same evidence that Stalin was weak, paranoid, too clever by half, and lucky. After all, he botched Soviet policy in China, gave away Manchuria to Japan, helped fascists into power through his Comintern activities, turned too late to the Popular Front strategy, misread Hitler and became the greatest appeaser of all, and provoked the cold war with his needless, heedless impositions in occupied Europe.

¹¹ Michael Howard, "The World According to Henry. From Metternich to Me," *Foreign Affairs*, May/June 1994, pp. 132-40.

Fall 1994 | 5

## Review Essays

Kissinger is also too kind to Franklin Roosevelt, in my judgment. He says nothing about U.S. policy toward the Chinese Civil War, and his account of the origins of the Korean War relies on the dubious old saw about Dean Acheson's oversight in a speech.

On the other hand, much else in Kissinger's book, especially his summary of the First World War era—from origins to peacemaking—is superb. So, too, is his insightful account of the origins and execution of the containment doctrine.¹²

So, with much justification, Robert Tucker finds *Diplomacy* "brilliant though thoroughly idiosyncratic,"¹³ and Schama "an oddly engaging Cracker Jack assortment of gems and howlers." He thinks (as do I) that the narrative improves mightily in style and insight as it reaches the nineteenth century, the pages sparkling "with intelligence and insight." Schama's real disappointment lies in the fact that Henry chose to write history at all instead of "an anatomy of the methods and stratagems of the [diplomatic] craft, written with the sharp analytical intelligence of a former Secretary of State who has been both an insider and an outsider and whose sensitivity to the nuances of diplomatic language is unmatched."¹⁴ Peter Grier put the same complaint pithily: "Cut out all the Metternich; leave in the tips."¹⁵

Good advice—for Kissinger's next book. But *Diplomacy* is like an oriental carpet, as interesting for its flaws as its brilliant patterns. For it tells us much not only about the past, but about history as a craft, about Kissinger himself, and (through our reactions to it) about ourselves. You can't ask much more of a history book.

## History's Henry

The reception given *Diplomacy* reveals as much about the historical construction of Henry Kissinger as it does about Kissinger's construction of history. For Henry, it seems, is a stranger in our midst. Or so the reviewers would have it.

"For more than 900 pages," writes Robert A. Divine, the George A. Littlefield Professor at the University of Texas and a dean of American diplomatic history, "Kissinger reveals a profound knowledge of world diplomacy and a nearly total ignorance of American culture." In Divine's view, "Kissinger preaches a sophisticated sermon on the virtues of realpolitik without ever acknowledging that the success of the United States in world affairs stems directly from a repudiation of this Old World concept." Kissinger

¹² See also, Henry Kissinger, "Reflections on Containment," *Foreign Affairs*, May/June 1994, pp. 113-30, which is adapted from Kissinger's *Diplomacy*.

¹³ Tucker, "Masterwork," p. 78.

¹⁴ Schama, "The Games of Great Men," p. 96.

¹⁵ Peter Grier, "Kissinger's Top Diplomatic Tips," *The Christian Science Monitor*, Apr. 27, 1994.

6 | Orbis

## Review Essays

remains a stranger in his adopted land; he "knows all the words, but never learned the music."¹⁶

This is as neat a statement as one may ever find of the hoary supposition that Kissinger is a nineteenth-century Central European plunked down in the middle of twentieth-century America. Kissinger is indeed of German origin and education (especially if one counts the reputed influence of Fritz Kraemer, his "discoverer" and mentor). He appreciates balance, order, and predictability of behavior, without which no ideals of any kind can be advanced in domestic or international society. Some of his relatives died in the Holocaust; he knows the danger of unrestrained ideology. And he knows from experience the price paid by American soldiers to redeem the folly of democratic politicians. His early writings explain, and to some extent extol, the efforts of hard-headed "realists" like Metternich and Lord Castlereagh, who built the most successful international system of modern times. Once in office, he spoke of "a generation of peace," not peace for all time, and "an era of negotiation," not a new world order. And he practiced what Divine says he "preached" (a strange verb to choose under the circumstances).

But as we know, Kissinger was attacked from the American Left and Right alike, each of which spied something alien in Nixon and Kissinger's realpolitik. Now, Divine criticizes Kissinger for believing that a balance-of-power approach might have won over the public were it not for Watergate. In fact, writes Divine, it was not a president versed in geopolitical manipulation but a confessed Wilsonian and critic of détente—Ronald Reagan—who "finally achieved the long-sought goal of ending Soviet tyranny." Kissinger, blind to the fact that "American idealism has been a powerful force," could neither appease it at home nor wield it abroad, and so he was forced to explain the end of the cold war as a matter of irony and timing. Divine asserts that Wilsonianism, not realpolitik, won the cold war, and that our goal today should be "based on fulfilling Jefferson's dream of an empire of liberty, not on Richelieu's balance of power."¹⁷

Schama makes a similar point. According to Kissinger's argument, Reagan's "addiction to demonizing rhetoric coupled with impulsive negotiation ought to have represented a unique foreign policy nightmare," whereas in fact the progress he made in relations with Moscow would have been beyond the means of either a liberal or a realpolitiker. Schama is even impelled to ask: "Is an American realpolitik a contradiction in terms?"¹⁸

Paul Johnson's review of *Diplomacy* is decidedly favorable, but he, too, interprets Kissinger's instincts as those of "a civilized European."¹⁹ Tucker says, "We are urged to heed the lessons of the [European] past in order to meet the challenges of the [American] future."²⁰ According to Mead,

¹⁶ Robert A. Divine, "Diplomacy According to Kissinger," *The Philadelphia Inquirer*, Apr. 24, 1994.

¹⁷ Ibid.

¹⁸ Schama, "The Games of Great Men," p. 92.

¹⁹ Paul Johnson, "The World Stage," *Commentary*, Apr. 1994, pp. 55–56.

²⁰ Tucker, "Masterwork," p. 81.

Fall 1994 | 7

## Review Essays

"Kissinger believes that American diplomats and public opinion need to absorb European ideas about realism and balance of power politics.²¹ *The Economist* sees Kissinger trying "to reconcile his advocacy of the European approach of *Realpolitik*" with American exceptionalism.²² Howard suggests that Kissinger employs the neutral euphemism "geopolitics" so as not to offend his American audience with his real subject, "power politics." Howard points with irony to the fact that the American people, in the heat of Vietnam, elected a president "who, much as he admired Woodrow Wilson, shared few of his ideals, and Nixon selected as his adviser Henry Kissinger, who shared none of them."²³

> *The supposed dichotomy between a "realistic" European approach to foreign policy and an "idealistic" American one is simply false—and Henry knows it.*

Are we to accept as given this "European" Kissinger whose lifelong calling has been to educate naïve Americans about the realities of power? If so, what are we to make of the fact that *Diplomacy* contains high praise for Woodrow Wilson? (Craig read the book closely enough to see that "Kissinger's admiration of Wilson is undisguised" for he "grasped the mainsprings of American motivation."²⁴) What all this suggests to me is that the supposed dichotomy between a "realistic" European approach to foreign policy and an "idealistic" American one is simply false—and that Henry knows it. Certainly, Americans have always wanted to *believe* that they were more idealistic than other nations—which is not surprising since the *novo ordo seclorum* was a major plank in our revolutionary and national propaganda. But we have never fully lived our ideals—ask any foreigner—and in any case, our ideals were themselves inspired by Europeans. Thus, the brilliant contrarian Conor Cruise O'Brien suggests that it would be "nearer to the truth to say that the *rhetoric* of American foreign policy has been shaped by Wilsonian rhetoric, while the substance has been shaped mostly by considerations of national interest." Indeed, O'Brien (a biographer of Edmund Burke) faults Kissinger for making too *deep* a bow at the altar of American moralism.²⁵

So here we are again, hung up on the old dialectic of American idealism versus European realism. The argument always runs the same: nations must pursue ideals lest they succumb to Ozymandian pride and their majesty prove ephemeral; no, statesmen must be realistic lest they do more harm than

21 Mead, "Peace Keepers and Power Brokers," p. 3.

22 "Henry Kissinger Weighs In," *The Economist*, May 14, 1994, p. 93.

23 Howard, "The World According to Henry," pp. 136-37.

24 Craig, "Looking for Order," p. 10.

25 Conor Cruise O'Brien, "Realpolitik or Moral Values," *Insight*, May 16, 1994, p. 31. See also Conor Cruise O'Brien, "Kissinger Best on Diplomacy of Predecessors," *The Washington Times* (National Weekly Edition), June 6-12, 1994.

8 | Orbis

Review Essays

good with their moralizing; no, history proves that idealism is in fact a higher
realism—look at the fall of the Soviet empire; no, realism is really a higher
idealism—even our victories in two, now three, world wars have not sufficed
to fashion a new world order. And so to the synthesis: we must be idealistic as
to our goals, and realistic as to our means, keeping always in mind the ethical
principles governing the use of force. Choice cannot be avoided, balances must
be struck. Does any serious observer disagree with any of this?

If not, then the critics all agree with Kissinger, and it is not a European
or American thing at all but a function of geopolitical circumstance. The
United States was blessed with advantages that allowed it to emphasize its
idealism, making it seem more millenarian; Europeans rarely had such a
luxury and generally suffered when they tried to claim it anyway.

This is neither more nor less than what Kissinger argues in *Diplomacy*. Of course one ought to serve values in one's foreign policy *to the extent that circumstances permit*. The statesman's essential task is to create circumstances propitious to the flowering of one's values—if he can. Kissinger admires Metternich not because he thought in terms of balance of power (Craig, a German historian, caught this), but because his Vienna system rested on "a sense of shared values. . . . There was not only a physical equilibrium, but a moral one. Power and justice were in substantial harmony." Tell that to the Poles, or Italians, Hungarians, or Irish, an idealist might reply. Metternich's system may have been "just" as dynasts or local hegemons defined justice, but it was a prison of peoples no less than the Soviet empire. Ah, but there were no holocausts under the Vienna system, and the forces of democracy and nationalism were largely satisfied without cataclysmic eruptions thanks to the stability of the Vienna architecture. What Kissinger means when he deploys the word "balance" is not only balance of power, but balance between ends and means, aspirations and limits, ideals and realities, risks and rewards. It is another word for wisdom, and it has nothing to do with "European" or "American" states of mind.²⁶

To be sure, Kissinger is comfortable at the chessboard of world politics and manifestly uneasy in the arena of American politics. A Daniel Patrick Moynihan might have been a Kissinger, but Kissinger could never have been a Moynihan. Perhaps that is a function of his status as an "outsider," or simply his temperament. He may even envy the "great communicators" who can reach out and strum American heartstrings. But—pace Robert Divine—a lack of talent for the piano does not make one contemptuous of music.

26 A late reviewer came to the same conclusion as I, and cites a 1968 article, "Central Issues in American Foreign Policy," in which Kissinger argued that the United States had to strike a balance between American idealism and European realism. In effect, therefore, Kissinger "has done what immigrants to this country have always done: taken the best in their own tradition and blended it with the best in the American tradition to produce something . . . at once authentically American and genuinely cosmopolitan." See Joseph Strattan, "Diplomacy," *The American Spectator*, July 1994, pp. 68-70.

Fall 1994 | 9

## Review Essays

There is another way to approach "history's Kissinger": the Kissinger created by his flight from Nazi Germany, by World War II, Harvard, Rockefeller, Nixon, Washington, and rarified consultancy. Kissinger says nothing of his own intellectual formation in *Diplomacy* (perhaps saving it for an autobiography) and almost nothing of ideology (perhaps because *A World Restored*, his classic on the Congress of Vienna, deals with little else). And since his mask is opaque, perhaps the American reader cannot quite believe that Kissinger has emotions to manage, or wrestles with moral dilemmas. If reviewing *Diplomacy* means (for most) reviewing Kissinger himself, then much vexation stems from the fact that Henry doesn't tell us about Henry in *Diplomacy*.

> What Kissinger means when he deploys the word "balance" is not only balance of power, but balance between ends and means, aspirations and limits, ideals and realities, risks and rewards.

More important, Kissinger's silence on ideology invites misunderstanding. That is because the *raison d'etat* approach identified with him commanded the historical stage only until the modern secular ideologies leapt from the Pandora's Box of the French Revolution: liberalism, socialism, nationalism. (Conservatism, by contrast, is an anti-ideology, a rejection of *any* ideological impress upon institutions.) Since Kissinger does not deal explicitly with the ideologization of world politics, certain questions persist about Kissinger's true beliefs, acts in office, personality, and comfort with America itself. Are Americans themselves ideological, and Kissinger a conservative, in which case a philosophical divide may well exist between him and our political culture? Or does Kissinger accept liberalism for purposes of domestic politics, but remain skeptical of attempts to promote it abroad? Or does he in fact believe that the United States ought positively to strive to "enlarge" the global realm in which popular sovereignty and free markets thrive?

One would expect a "European" Kissinger to eschew ideologies and values in his current policy prescriptions. And sure enough, his final chapter, "The New World Order Revisited," has much to say about geopolitics and little to say about values. The United States, he reminds us in terms reminiscent of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas Spykman, is "an island off the shores of the large landmass of Eurasia" (p. 813), hence the prevention of any one power from dominating Europe or Asia remains the first task of American strategy.

In other words, the United States must play the role of the balancer, but not in the aloof manner of Britain, which tended to intervene on the continent only after a hegemonic threat arose and risk of war was the only recourse. Kissinger recommends to America the policy of constant engagement

10 | Orbis

Review Essays

practiced by Bismarck: prophylactic diplomacy designed to stabilize Europe and Asia and nip potential conflicts in the bud. Thus, he urges the United States to retain close ties to Germany and Russia, lest those old rivals for hegemony either come to blows or join forces, and extend NATO's security umbrella to the new democracies of middle Europe.²⁷ The same goes for East Asia, where the United States must continue its military presence and never allow disputes over trade or human rights to interfere with constructive security relations.

Kissinger's realism also makes him impatient with talk of "new world orders." The end of the cold war, he writes, "has made it far more difficult to implement the Wilsonian dream of universal collective security. . . . The world community is willing enough to cooperate in 'peacekeeping'—that is, in policing an existing agreement not challenged by any of the parties—but it has been skittish about peacemaking—the suppression of actual challenges to world order" (p. 809). What is more, the major players today—the United States, united Europe, Russia, China, Japan, and India—have little in common except their *lack* of experience in cooperative, multipolar international systems. "Never before has a new world order had to be assembled from so many different perceptions, or on so global a scale" (p. 26). He grants that American policy must "take into account" the core values of a nation forged in the name of liberty, but if it ignores contemporary realities, then our "foreign policy will turn into righteous posturing." In sum, whatever new order emerges will be decades in gestation, and the best the United States can hope for is "the patient accumulation of partial successes" (p. 835).

Most reviewers do not deny the wisdom of Kissinger's advice, but few are wholly comfortable with the notion that a "Bismarckian" diplomacy paying lip service to Wilsonianism should define America's role in the twenty-first century. Divine believes that Kissinger misses the lesson of the cold war. Mead slams him for his apparent failure to understand the importance of economics in "our homegrown American foreign policy tradition."²⁸ Howard objects to Kissinger's counsel because the spread of democracy and economic interdependence around the world make it "questionable whether the concept of a purely 'national' interest makes sense any longer."²⁹ Enoch Powell thinks that Kissinger's vocabulary is inadequate to the post-cold war world, "that just at this point his lights become dimmed."³⁰ The cleverest comment on Kissinger's *tour d'horizon* is Craig's: "He does not say that a prerequisite of success would be a negotiator as inventive, and as tireless as he was himself, but we are perhaps justified in believing that this is assumed."³¹

27 *The Economist* spies a problem with Kissinger's program that all other reviewers (including myself) missed. If the United States must resist domination of Europe by a single power, "cold war or no cold war," then what U.S. policy would he suggest "towards development of an enlarged European Union capable of acting as a single unit? Or towards a potential entente between the European Union and Russia?" Good question.

28 Mead, "Peace Keepers and Power Brokers," p. 14.

29 Howard, "The World According to Henry," pp. 139-40.

30 Enoch Powell, "How Nixon's Metternich Sees the World," *The Wall Street Journal*, Apr. 27, 1994.

31 Craig, "Looking for Order," p. 14.

Fall 1994 | 11

## Review Essays

Kissinger's aversion to "taking a pledge" on issues of morality, political philosophy, trendy new subjects of international relations such as poverty, population, resources, and the environment, or indeed anything having to do with the ordering of domestic societies does not surprise anyone familiar with his past writings and career. But his reticence leaves room for the suspicion that Kissinger is an elitist preoccupied with power and impatient with the irrational play of mass politics. Schama gets off a nasty crack when he writes that "Kissinger has a peculiar way of averting his gaze from the ideological content of the regimes served by the diplomatic virtuosi he most admires. . . . G. Gordon Liddy and the rest of the gang would have felt right at home working for Richelieu or Metternich."³² Howard refers to "that *ancien regime* from which [Kissinger] derived his values and to which he now looks back with such understandable nostalgia."³³ And Timothy Garton Ash doubts that Kissinger's bows to Wilsonianism "will actually make his peace with America."³⁴

So even if Henry's alleged "European-ness" is a myth, as I suspect, it will apparently die hard, if only because Americans seem unable to live in an unideological world, a world with too much power and not enough virtue. But a far more important question is simply whether Kissinger is right when he concludes (as Margaret Thatcher's private secretary puts it) "that America will have to learn to operate in a balance-of-power system not a million miles removed from that of nineteenth-century Europe."³⁵

## Henry's Heresy

As Kissinger stood with his parents upon being named secretary of state, he observed with emotion that such a thing could only happen in America. Schama sees in this a "poignant irony. For all his sense that American democratic ideals have placed an unbearable burden on the free agency of our foreign policy, Kissinger would be the last to dispute their essential nobility."³⁶ The episode calls to mind Gustav Stresemann, who reconciled himself to the Weimar Republic only upon being made chancellor. Commoners like himself could never have achieved such rank in the Kaiser's day, and so they were called *Vernunftrepublikaner*: republicans of the head if not of the heart.

I cannot help but wonder how much of the angst expressed about Kissinger is born of wonderment over the contents of his heart. Is it in fact the apparent "heartlessness" of Kissinger's writings and doings that makes hearty Americans uneasy? Is his "heresy" a matter of sentiment as much as doctrine? I do not know the answer, but I know that the inquiry must begin with

³² Schama, "The Games of Great Men," p. 95.

³³ Howard, "The World According to Henry," p. 140.

³⁴ Ash, "The Rules of the Game," p. 43.

³⁵ Charles Powell, "No Diplomat," *National Review*, June 13, 1994, pp. 63-65 (quote on p. 63).

³⁶ Schama, "The Games of Great Men," p. 96.

12 | Orbis

Review Essays

Kissinger's reading of the Vietnam War. For, as we have stressed, Kissinger's views do not separate well from his career, and the critics rarely try to keep them apart. Nowhere do theory and practice collide with a bigger bang than in Vietnam.

According to *Diplomacy*, the American debacle in Vietnam was implicit in the universalization of containment, itself a dubious imposition of American moralism on what was otherwise a sound geopolitical response to Stalinism. As early as 1950, the United States decided that Southeast Asia had to be defended, and the Domino Theory became conventional wisdom. But how could containment, which was meant to shelter democracies, be extended to the Mandarin polities emerging from colonialism? It could not be, but, says Kissinger, something about Vietnam "consistently blighted the reasoning power of foreigners who ventured into it" (p. 630). Hence, the U.S. military believed it could win where the French had lost, the Kennedy administration forgot what Korea had done to Truman just nine years before, and McNamara's whiz kids, far from believing that military might could solve a political problem, convinced themselves that political "nation-building" could solve what was really a military problem.

According to Kissinger, Eisenhower understood that Southeast Asia was a military problem and that its key was Laos. But the Kennedy people shrank from "so cold-blooded a strategic analysis" and deemed it "inappropriate for a conflict still perceived largely in ideological terms" (p. 647). So it bargained away Laos in 1961, providing Hanoi with a sanctuary and supply route to South Vietnam. Finally, in hopes of bringing the commitment to Saigon in line with American rhetoric, John F. Kennedy jettisoned the authoritarian Diem and Lyndon Johnson pronounced the real danger in Indochina to be hunger, ignorance, poverty, and disease. "Ultimately, every revolutionary war is about governmental legitimacy; undermining it is the guerilla's principal aim. Diem's overthrow handed that objective to Hanoi for free" (p. 655). The U.S. military, barred from cutting the Ho Chi Minh trail, then proceeded to adopt the hopeless strategy of suppressing the insurgency throughout the entire length of South Vietnam, thereby ensuring a stalemate that could only benefit the enemy.

Critics soon blamed Johnson for an unwillingness to negotiate. In fact, says Kissinger, "Johnson's eagerness to start negotiations was so palpable as to be self-defeating" (p. 663). As the costs in Vietnam grew out of proportion to the geopolitical stakes, critics came to equate the North and South Vietnamese governments, obviating the American need to defend "democracy," and then concluded that the war must reflect a moral rot in the *American* government, in which case the North Vietnamese were the real good guys. Kissinger points more than once to poll data showing that the majority of Americans remained "hawks" on the war throughout, but the group that "lost its nerve represented the very Establishment figures who had backed intervention all along" (p. 671). Hence, Johnson threw away his chance to crush the enemy after its disastrous Tet Offensive of 1968, and took himself off the stage. That,

Fall 1994 | 13

## Review Essays

Kissinger writes, was unconscionable. Johnson could have stood for re-election, thus creating a popular mandate either for winning or getting out. Or he could have stood down, but exerted maximum pressure on North Vietnam in order to expand the options for his successor. Instead, "by simultaneously de-escalating, renouncing his candidacy, and offering negotiations, Johnson combined every disadvantage" (p. 672).

Nixon and Kissinger were left to pick their way toward "peace with honor." Unilateral withdrawal was not an option: it would take fifteen months or more to extricate five hundred thousand men, might precipitate a rout, and could turn into "geopolitical disaster" if America's friends and enemies concluded that it no longer stood tall. But "the leaders of the Peace Movement considered the war so repugnant that an honorable extrication from Vietnam had come to sound like an absurdity" (p. 675). Indeed, having "transmuted the war into a domestic conflict between good and evil at home, the Peace Movement preferred—for reasons it viewed as highly moral—America's collapse in Vietnam to an outcome which, precisely because it might be considered 'honorable', might also whet its government's appetite for further foreign adventures" (p. 688). American idealism, far from getting lost during Vietnam, was never so in evidence. But the idealistic tradition had split, precipitating civil war in the streets, and was thus of no use to Nixon even if the president had had the charisma to invoke it.³⁷

Meanwhile, Nixon pursued détente with the Communist powers and Kissinger hammered out peace in Paris. He hoped "that it would enable America to start the process of national healing" (p. 692). But Congress refused to enforce the peace, Nixon became mired in Watergate, and the critics of the war refused to be reconciled. Kissinger holds to the view that the Paris Accords might have worked, and reserves the ultimate blame for America itself. "The test of a society is whether it can submerge its differences in pursuit of common objectives, and whether it can keep in mind that societies thrive on their reconciliations, not on their conflicts. America failed that test in Indochina" (p. 694).

Think for a moment about this account. It is objective, lucid, and devastating. No wonder Divine says that Kissinger remains a stranger in American hearts, for you simply cannot tell all factions in a country that suffered so much that all of them failed—even if they did. First, Kissinger indicts the "idealistic" cold war liberals for the misapprehensions and hubris that got us into Vietnam, then he blames the "idealistic" Vietnam protesters for contributing to the agony rather than a resolution, then he castigates the

³⁷ This decisive point was implicit in *Diplomacy*. But Kissinger was obliged to make it explicit as a result of the flap following publication of the Haldeman diaries. First, Albert Hunt (*The Wall Street Journal*, May 26, 1994), then Anthony Lewis (*The New York Times*, May 30, 1994) charged that Kissinger and Nixon made Vietnam policy on the basis of domestic political considerations, implying that they sacrificed the lives of thousands of soldiers in the interest of Nixon's re-election. Kissinger rebukes Lewis for levelling such a heinous accusation on the strength of "a single entry in 600 pages of the H.R. Haldeman diaries" ("Hanoi, Not Nixon, Set Pace of Vietnam Peace," *The New York Times*, June 3, 1994), and—in reply to Hunt—writes, "Vietnam was a tragedy because the commitment . . . grew out of America's idealistic tradition and the extrication became a nightmare because that idealism turned on itself" ("I Stand by My Eulogy to Nixon," *The Wall Street Journal*, June 3, 1994).

14 | Orbis

## Review Essays

whole country for cracking up when it needed to pull together. He may be right to indict *all* Americans for letting their moralism lead them astray. But it is heresy to say so.

### Heresy's Henry

How dare Kissinger criticize our moral tradition? Has it not been our badge of honor since 1776 *and* our best weapon in world affairs? Isn't the world today turning more and more to our ideals and institutions? Isn't it America's calling to lead the world into habits and institutions that will *liberate* nations from thralldom to geopolitics? If we believe that the answers are "Yes," whether or not we believe that America has always lived up to its calling, then we *must* ostracize Kissinger in our hearts, if not in print.

But what if Kissinger is orthodox and the Wilsonians are the real heretics? He surely bases his politics on the orthodox doctrine of human imperfectability, hence on the contingency of all human creations. Aristotle and the Greeks, and the Jewish and Christian scriptures all said the same. So did our own Founding Fathers, who designed their "more" perfect union on the principle that checks and balances are needed to contain the play of human corruption. The City on a Hill notwithstanding, no sensible American believed that his country would be free of vice or faction. From these first principles, the Founding Fathers deduced a foreign policy meant to shelter America, to the degree possible, from the dangers inherent in a wicked world: isolationism when possible, power politics when necessary, and balance of power once U.S. interests reached the coasts of Europe and Asia. What we now think of as hard-boiled "realism" is not some import carried to America by the likes of Hans Morgenthau or Henry Kissinger. It was fundamental to the classical wisdom on which the country was founded.

But gradually, over the course of the nineteenth century, Anglo-American Protestants reacted to the ills they perceived in the industrial, imperialist world by overestimating the power of law and good works to change human behavior, then transferred their private calling to public life, then exported it. So it was that an otherwise devout Christian like Woodrow Wilson began to sound like that old Enlightenment radical Tom Paine, blaming governments for the corruption of men instead of men for the corruption of governments. Wilson seduced Americans into believing that whole nations could be converted and that wars were just only if crusades. That millenarian heresy inspired everything from the botched peace at Versailles to the smug isolationism of the thirties to the "bear any burden" mentality that landed us in Vietnam. Could it be, therefore, that Kissinger more truly reflects the philosophical sobriety of our nation's founders? That Kissinger is more American than Wilson?

There is at least one undeniably un-American thing about Kissinger, and that is his pessimism. Americans may have been traditionally suspicious of men and of governments, but they were always bullish on America. Reagan

Fall 1994 | 15

UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA

School of Arts and Sciences

Department of History
207 College Hall
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6379
215-898-8452/3
Fax: 215-573-2089

To: Henry A. Kissinger
From: Walter A. McDougall
Date: January 18, 1995
Re: Future Book Project

In his review of *Diplomacy* Simon Schama urged Dr Kissinger to write a book describing "the methods and strategems of the diplomatic craft" in light of his skill, experience, and (I dare say) personality. Other reviewers, including myself, endorse this suggestion. A "how-to book" on statecraft would be fun to write, quickly done, relatively short (250 pages would be a good target), hence reasonably priced and a likely bestseller.

Nevertheless, such a project requires considerable planning given that the subject matter is inchoate and loaded with potential public-relations pitfalls. Dr Kissinger must not seem to be playing Moses, handing down commandments from on high, nor appear to be an amoral Machiavelli boasting of his skill in devious machinations. Rather, he must somehow convey his accumulated wisdom while at the same time impress the reader with his humility and humanity. Not an easy task, but Nixon's *In the Arena* is a good example.

Dr Kissinger must also determine just what goals he wants to achieve through his publications in general, and whether a book of the sort urged by Schama is the best vehicle for realizing some of those goals. After all, Dr Kissinger has written memoirs and diplomatic histories, and is rumored to be planning an autobiography. Would a book on statecraft be redundant, or not?

For the purposes of this memo I am assuming that Dr Kissinger will in fact contemplate writing a treatise on statecraft, and I have tried to imagine the decisions that must be made in order to bring it to fruition. No doubt some of my suggestions will strike Dr Kissinger as obvious, while others he will choose to set aside. I certainly do not expect to teach him anything he doesn't already know. Nevertheless, it may help to have some ideas off which to bounce his own thoughts. That, at least, is my hope.

I have divided this memo into six sections: Audience, Strategy, Structure, Subjects, Themes, and Bibliography. Finally, I have appended the list of the apothegms drawn from *Diplomacy* and published in *Orbis*.

For purposes of convenience I refer to the author (forgive the presumption) as Dr K, and to the hypothetical book as *Statecraft* (which would make a nice parallelism with the one-word title *Diplomacy*).

ELCJ

JAN 20 1995

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 2

I. AUDIENCE (WHAT READERSHIPS IS THE AUTHOR TARGETING?)

This issue may be more complex than one would first imagine. For instance, a book of wisdom aimed at the young foreign service officer might turn out quite differently than an apologia aimed at the intelligentsia generally, or a treatise designed for colleagues in the I.R. biz, or a "good read" meant to appeal to a broad public, or a self-conscious "classic" crafted with an eye to future generations of historians and statesmen.

Dr K may choose to target all, some, or one of those readerships. One task will be to identify in what ways the needs of one audience clash with those of another, and then finesse that conflict. Even when no obvious contradictions appear, he may want to arrange material and adjust the style of the book so as to hold the interest of all parties. I don't mean to exaggerate this difficulty. Lots of books become bestsellers despite contents that are 90 percent boring or over the heads of the public, and *Statecraft* will be anything but boring. I only mean to suggest that the author's several purposes ought not to interfere with each other. It will be helpful to try to visualize the various audiences while writing, and take care not to pitch the book too much toward a single one (*unless*, of course, that is Dr K's intent).

II. STRATEGY (WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR WISH TO ACHIEVE?)

Putting myself in the position of a reviewer of *Statecraft*, I can imagine
asking: why did Kissinger write this book? Just to stick the needle in old
adversaries and critics, or to puff up his reputation, or to defend his deeds
in government, or to promote a certain approach to foreign policy? Hostile
reviewers (and there are bound to be several) will make nasty generalizations
about the book on the basis of a handful of sentences taken out of context. I
know Dr K has come to expect that.¹ But the fact remains that an author must
maintain his focus throughout a book, otherwise even honest reviewers and
readers may be perplexed as to what it's about. (I think I failed in this
regard with *Let the Sea Make a Noise*.)

Some purposes for writing *Statecraft* can be made explicit in the introduction.
First, I suggest exploiting the deference that age still confers. Dr K will
be pushing 75 years old by the time the book appears, and most Americans
respond with sympathy and even nostalgia to the elder statesman who wants to
record for posterity the wisdom he has gathered in life. Readers would also
applaud a book presented as a guide to "the real world" for students and young
people in all walks of life, especially foreign affairs. A third

¹ As the basketball philosopher Charles Barkley says, "I don't care what other people think about what I say--I'm their worst nightmare." People hate it when you're not intimidated by their disapproval; it strips them of the only power they have over you.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 3

unimpeachable motivation is patriotism: the desire to serve America by
contributing what one can to improving the quality of her foreign policy
planning and execution.

Other purposes (personal ones, or less noble ones) cannot be made explicit,
and must be pursued "between the lines." For instance, *Statecraft* will go a
long way toward shaping Dr K's final "image" among Americans, whether or not
he has that in mind. That is why it will be a delicate matter to reveal
seemingly devious "tricks of the trade" yet not be branded a bad guy. Perhaps
Dr K can take that head-on by reminding readers that Machiavelli himself was a
great humanist, and that all his advice to the "Prince" was meant to advance
the cause of peace, unity, and prosperity for his beloved Italy. This old
"ends vs. means" debate will be tedious for specialists, but a short passage
on it could go far toward erasing any "Strangelovian" image that persists in
the minds of the general public. But neither can one's popular image be
crafted solely by an intellectual chisel. People will not have a "kinder,
gentler" view of Kissinger because he quotes Reinhold Niebuhr or meditates on
the *ius in bello*. Most ordinary folks craft their image of public figures out
of impressions of character. For instance, if Dr K were to tell of some
actions or decisions he did *not* take because some ethical calculus, the reader
would subconsciously find it easier to conclude that other actions the author
did take were subject to the same ethical calculus about ends and means or
proportionality of force.

By the same token, the general public would be well disposed were Dr K to
admit to some mistakes, even if minor ones, over the course of his career.
For *Statecraft* will inevitably be composed mostly of successful maneuvers,
since one of its main purposes is to illustrate the wiles of the good
statesman. But if Dr K seems to be suggesting that he was right about
everything, the reader (who knows no one is perfect) is liable to conclude
that the whole book is self-serving. A few confessions of *faux pas*,
therefore, will reassure non-specialist readers and make it easier for them to
conclude that the author *was* right when he claims he was.

An author must also keep in mind all that he does *not* want to achieve. That
is, what should he be sure to avoid? The "image" question is one case of
that, but it also bears on the intellectual question. First, what precepts
and principles does Dr K mean to promote in this book, and how can he avoid
being misunderstood? Second, what precepts and principles must be explicitly
refuted by the author lest readers and reviewers attribute them (falsely) to
Dr K. Third, what precepts and principles of statecraft does Dr K wish
explicitly to refute even if there is no danger of their being falsely
attributed to him?

Style is a function of the book's intended audiences and purposes. The young
FSO or I.R. student will be eager for tips on how to "get ahead" in politics
and bureaucracies. The scholar will want didactic discussions of foreign
policy, diplomacy, history, and ethics. The general reader will expect
"inside stories" and juicy anecdotes from the author's career. Of course, Dr

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 4

K may decide to pitch the book at a particular audience, and choose his style accordingly. But if he hopes to appeal to all these constituencies he must strive for a balance. In general, I would say the more dramatic or humorous anecdotes that nevertheless illustrate a serious point, the better.

Poking fun at oneself occasionally is also a good tactic serving the "humility and humanity" agenda. The Adenauer story in *Diplomacy* is a wonderful example.

Dr K can also draw on a wealth of pithy aphorisms from the classical literature on statecraft, as described below in the bibliography.

Finally, regarding strategy and style, Dr K must decide whether (or how much) to worry about overlap and repetition with his previous books. Inevitably, some of the examples he wishes to use to illustrate aspects of statecraft will have been described already in his memoirs and other writings. The best approach is to use original examples when available, but not to fret when a duplication is necessary. One can always toss in a footnote or a phrase in the text: "As described in *The White House Years*, ..."

### III. STRUCTURE (HOW SHOULD THE BOOK BE ORGANIZED?)

I confess that I cannot recommend confidently at this point about the most difficult literary problem: structure. Consider a book on how to build a backyard deck or how to do household plumbing. Such a book can proceed in 1,2,3 fashion. A book on photography can begin with fundamentals and descriptions of tools, then move logically to chapters on techniques: indoor vs. outdoor shoots, lighting, composition, etc. Even a book about chess almost structures itself because the field of battle, pieces, and rules are strictly delimited. But a book on statecraft is open-ended. Its playing field is the whole world and all of history. The game never begins or ends or takes a timeout. The tools (or weapons) range from nuclear missiles and infantry to intelligence and espionage to economic assistance and bribes to person-to-person human psychology. Statecraft is truly an art; a matter of instinct as much as technical analysis. How do you teach an art?

In the past, classic works on statecraft have been of three sorts: diaries and autobiographies (with the lessons emerging from the telling); books of maxims (with the precepts simply asserted as wise sayings); and political testaments (in which the wise ruler pontificates ex post facto and passes advice on to his successors). The first sort has a simple chronological structure like diplomatic history. But Dr K has already written his memoirs, while a political testament would be premature and unnecessary given his continued vigorous participation in foreign policy. That leaves the second structure--the book of maxims--or a fourth (dreary) possibility, the political science text. Such texts customarily begin with jargonized theory on sovereignty and the nature of the international system, then proceed to chapters on the institutions and habits of professional foreign services and (drearier still) international organizations.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 5

I have only two suggestions to make. First, Dr K might select a few (half a dozen or so) maxims that he considers paramount (and into which lesser maxims can be subsumed) and organize the book around them. These can be wise sayings of broad application which the chapters that follow them illustrate through various situations. Or they can be subject-specific, with the chapters that follow them elaborating on each subject in turn. An example of the former would be "For a Prince ought to have two fears, the one from within, in regard of his subjects; the other from abroad, in regard of his mighty neighbors" (Machiavelli), which could be used to introduce a chapter on how to juggle domestic and foreign policy in various polities. An example of the subject-specific approach might be to devote chapters in seriatim to the Foreign Minister's (SecState's) tricks of the trade regarding the care and handling of his Prince (or President), bureaucracy, Parliament (or Congress), Press and Public, Foreign Adversaries, Foreign Allies, and so forth.

Second, Dr K may prefer to organize the book in "political science" fashion while eschewing the political science style and instead filling each chapter with aphorisms, examples, and anecdotes. Thus, chapter 1 might offer a discussion of the hard facts about international relations (refuting all liberal shibboleths). Chapter 2 might discuss the classical wisdom passed down from Greece, China, and Renaissance Italy (and why it is still relevant today). Chapter 3 might summarize statecraft in the 20th century and demonstrate what, if anything, is new under the sun. Then the book moves into its "how to" mode, with chapters on major subjects of Dr K's choosing. The possible subjects are legion, as the list below suggests.

Indeed, if it is true that form follows function and design depends on one's building materials, then perhaps Dr K might begin by deciding which subjects he wants to address, then return to the question of structure.

## IV. SUBJECTS (WHAT DOES THE AUTHOR WANT TO COVER <or NOT COVER>？)

What follows is a list of topics Dr K might wish to address in *Statecraft*. I personally would be excited to read his views on any and all of them. But he must make this judgment at some point: does he mean to convey advice that is relevant only to the United States and to American diplomacy at the turn of the 21st century? Or does he mean to share wisdom that he deems relevant in all polities, at all places and times? Or some of both? (It occurs to me that these very questions suggest another sort of structure.)

* How to discern one's own "enlightened national interest" (i.e., identify the overarching priorities of one's state in the geopolitical system)

* How to discern the true interests of other nations (i.e., how to see the world from others' points of view)

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 6

*** How to educate one's adversary/interlocutor to his own best interests when he is being irrational and stubborn

*** How to adjust to cultural differences in geopolitics and philosophy, and how to negotiate successfully despite them²

*** How to signal and be understood

*** How to use signals to plant false leads and induce a certain behavior in one's adversary

*** How to maintain secrecy (a chance to parry the "wiretap canard"?), exploit it, and avoid its concomitant dangers

*** How to achieve and exploit surprise

*** How to employ deception, and, having employed it, maintain the trust or confidence of others

*** How to acquire good timing (if possible), avoid the disasters born of bad timing, and decide what to do if "the right time" never arrives

*** How to gather, interpret, exploit or discount intelligence data

*** How to decide what you really want in a given situation (=Policy Planning)

*** How to judge how much of that you can realistically aim for (=Analysis)

*** How to maximize your chances of getting what you aim for (=Execution)

*** How to employ bargaining strategies and negotiating tools, including:

- Brandishing carrots and sticks

- Summoning up common enemies

- Introducing new players and factors to change an equation

- Squeezing out unwanted players and factors

- Making threats, bluffs, and promises

- Giving up form in exchange for substance

- Exploiting an adversary's (or ally's) domestic vulnerabilities

- Linkage, bilateral and multilateral (i.e. 3 or 4 way "trades")

- Expanding one's options and shrinking the adversary's

- Preserving lines of retreat for all parties, and "saving face"

²The book might include a survey that contrasts the *world* views and negotiating styles of Chinese, Japanese, Frenchmen, Germans, Brits, Russians, Arabs with each other and with the American. I trust Dr K to be candid without giving offense, and would urge him to use as a model the terse, lucid account in *White House Years* about what makes modern Japan tick.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 7

*** How to play from weakness (another chance to remind readers of the deplorable situation which Nixon and Kissinger had to face?)

*** How to manage and lead coalitions (especially timely today)

*** How to make transitions from war to peace and vice versa

*** How to anticipate potentially dangerous initiatives on the part of opponents abroad or at home; how to deflect or pre-empt them or turn them (ju-jitsu style) against the enemy

*** How to get one's "Prince" to do what one wants

*** How to win over or neutralize Congress, the press, and public

*** How to manage/schmooze/short-circuit/end-run the bureaucracy

*** How to manage the State Department

*** How to manage the National Security Council

*** How to lobby the foreign policy community from the outside

*** How to manage one's time, and make time for study, reflection, and sleep

*** How to handle alcohol, jet lag, (bugged) hotels and embassies, and the various traps laid by adversaries on their turf

*** How to delegate work and responsibility, organize one's own work, control the demands of the telephone, fax, etc.

*** Finally, Dr K may wish to alert the reader to DONT'S as well as DO'S: i.e., classic or common blunders of statesmen, and how to avoid them

## V. THEMES (WHAT ARE THE LEITMOTIFS OF THE WORK?)

The book should have themes or threads running through it. A handful of powerful themes can knit together material that would otherwise seem random or "all over the place." These leitmotifs could be spelled out in the introduction and returned to again and again. If Dr K decides to use Statecraft as an opportunity to hammer home a few important truths (as opposed to many maxims or tips), this may be the way to go. Possible themes include:

*** War and diplomacy are not opposites, but exist (and overlap) on a continuum of force and statecraft. To the extent that liberals confound them, they confuse the public and undermine the nation's security.

*** A war avoided is as much a "real" event in history as a war that breaks out. But "ugly" means must often be employed to obtain "beautiful" ends.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 8

Other times, the necessary means are so secret that a statesman's
greatest coups go unrecorded.

*** The great powers have permanent geopolitical interests, opportunities and constraints that transcend anyone's notion of ideology or justice. As Strausz-Hupé was fond of saying, "You can't argue with geography."

*** Castlereagh's Conundrum (the real hero of *A World Restored*). The statesmen of a great power must think systemically, and not become fixated on his own state's perspective. But how then can he bring his countrymen to place the requirements of the system above their own apparent best interests?

*** The Law of Unintended Consequences. As the old British Foreign Office motto goes, "Actions have consequences; consequences are unpredictable; therefore, take no action." The wise statesman must try to anticipate the secondary, tertiary, and unintended consequences of policy. But he can never wholly succeed. Hence, one of the greatest virtues required of the statesman is meekness (before God, not before men).

*** The stock market is said to be driven by fear and greed. Politics adds ambition to the mix. The statesman's calling is to manage and balance fear, greed, and ambition, and somehow make good come out of it.

*** Most policy choices involve a lesser of evils.

*** There is no substitute for experience.

*** Parliaments are committees; they cannot manage, much less micromanage, foreign policy. How then, in a democratic world, can the "elitist" statesman function? Only in tandem with a strong, like-minded President. For even a brilliant SecState cannot make up for a meddling Congress or weak Executive.

*** The Reagan Rule: there's no limit to what you can achieve so long as you don't care who gets the credit. The wise statesman may seem at times to be the Lone Ranger, but at other times he can succeed only by managing the *kabuki* dance from behind the scenes, or allow some other leader (for foreign policy <or his domestic policy> reasons) to play the front man and crowd the hero bench. (Bismarck was a master of this.)

*** Or, to summarize all the above: in diplomacy nothing is as it seems, but that doesn't mean it's a fraud. Quite the contrary....

## VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY (WHAT OTHER WRITINGS MIGHT THE AUTHOR ADDRESS?)

A book on statecraft is bound to be compared to others in the genre. I can imagine reviewers accusing Dr K of setting himself up as a new Machiavelli and criticizing him on that score, either for elevating himself to such company,

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 9

or for endorsing an "amoral" approach to politics. Dr K can pre-empt such
attacks by discussing classic works on statecraft and choosing how to position
himself in their midst.³

The classics on statecraft can also serve as sources for lessons, aphorisms,
illustrations, and quotations to spice up the text of *Statecraft* and lend a
"for the ages" tone to the book.

References to modern works on statecraft can give Dr K chances to refute ideas
and authors he deems wrong, naive, or hopelessly academic.

Above all, references to classical wisdom will help to squelch charges of
pomposity, since Dr K will not be pretending to be the font of all wisdom, but
rather the interpreter of timeless truths for the current age. Describing
"how I learned the truth of Sun-Tzu's dictum ...." helps to put readers on the
same plane and allows them to identify with the author, rather than make them
feel like pupils sitting at his feet.

Some of the works Dr K may wish to consult, cite, or discuss are listed below,
and should help to get a research assistant off the ground. Many of the works
are familiar, but perhaps, like me, Dr K hasn't looked at some of them since
graduate school.

ANCIENT CLASSICS

It is worth mentioning, I think, that the great works on statecraft all
emerged in places and times that were characterized by multipolar systems
rather than imperial unity. Hence, the Chinese classics come from an era of
feuding warlords, the Arab ones from the era after the crackup of the
Caliphate, Japanese ones from the long, warring interregnum between
Shogunates, and the European ones from Renaissance Italy and the later Great
Power system. It is also interesting that none of them, prior to the 17th
century, advocated balance of power as a permanent condition. Rather, the
sages were seeking for ways to restore unity rather than maintain diversity.
(I don't know <or care> enough about Hindu civilization to recommend anything
from India, but Dr K might ask someone who does.)

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), *The Politics* and Thucydides (5th c. B.C.), *The Peloponnesian War*. I would consult a scholarly summary of these works, and only go to the text when a specific reference has been identified. But it is wise to go back to the original, for I recently read in a doctoral thesis that, while everyone quotes Thucydides to the effect that war came because of the rise of Athens and the fear that caused in Sparta

³ Even Frederick the Great wrote an *Anti-Machiavel*, though it came at the beginning, not the end, of his not altogether scrupulous career.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 10

(i.e., a classic case of uneven growth and pre-emption), the context of
that line makes clear that Thucydides was making a different point.

Sun-Tzu (6th c. B.C.), *The Art of War*. But see Ralph D. Sawyer, *The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China* (Westview Press, 1993), which contains six other works on strategy in addition to Sun-Tzu's. I'm not familiar with them, but citations to more obscure Chinese sages would be fascinating ... and gratifying to Chinese readers.

Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), *A Book of Five Rings. The Classic Guide to Strategy*, is a short samurai's manual, but may yield an insight or two.

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), *The Muqqadimah, An Introduction to History* is the great Arabic classic on statecraft.

See also Muhammed Mahmoud Rabi, *The Political Theory of Ibn Khaldun* (Leiden: Brill, 1967) and Afzal Iqbal, *Diplomacy in Early Islam* (Lahore, 1988).

Jewish and Christian writings on statecraft, from the Old Testament to Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas, might also be cited if Dr K decides to engage questions of ethics. The richest example of "Jewish wisdom literature," however, is the little known *Wisdom of Ieshua bar Sirach*, or *The Book of Sirach*, which appears in the Christian *Apocrypha*. It should be required reading for every 14 year old.

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), *The Prince*, *The Discourses* and *The Art of War*

Baldassarre Castiglione (1478-1529), *The Courtier*

Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540), *Maxims and Reflections* is a collection of
several hundred brilliant aperçus on politics.

See also the handy book edited by Burton A. Milligan, *Three Renaissance Classics: Machiavelli, More, Castiglione* (Scribner's, 1963), with a scholarly introduction; and, of course, the classic *Renaissance Diplomacy* (1955) by Garrett Mattingly.

These are the most celebrated works on statecraft from the Italian Renaissance. Everyone knows *The Prince*, but references to the other, obscure works would be enlightening, instructive, and fun for the reader. One of the excellent features of the Renaissance and Early Modern handbooks is their advice on how to handle one's own prince as well as foreign ones.

Jean Bodin (1530-1596) and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) are, of course, the giants of Early Modern European thought on statecraft. But see also François de Callières (1645-1717), *The Art of Diplomacy* (New York: Holmes & Meyer, 1983).

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 11

William J. Roosen, ed., *Daniel Defoe and Diplomacy* (Susquehanna Univ., 1986) is an undiscovered gem. Famous for his novels, Defoe (1661-1731) was also renowned for his wit and wisdom about diplomacy. A sample:

> "We blame the King that he relies too much
> On Strangers, Germans, Huguenots, and Dutch;
> And seldom would his great Affairs of State
> To English Councillors communicate.
> The fact might very well be answered thus.
> He has so often been betrayed by us,
> He must have been a madman to rely
> On English Gentleman's fidelity!"

Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), *On War* (see Peter Paret's edition)

Dr K may wish to discuss whether the lessons of these older thinkers are all applicable today, or whether modern politics and technology reduce their relevance. In other words, does wisdom about statecraft transcend culture and era, or is it specific to the conditions that inspired it?

## DIPLOMATIC MEMOIRS

Another source of examples and aphorisms is the memoir literature. Some of the more obvious ones that might be of use are the political testaments of Richelieu, Peter the Great, and Frederick the Great, the reflections of Bismarck and memoirs of Metternich, the diary and memoirs of John Quincy Adams, the autobiography and memoirs of Benjamin Franklin, the memoirs of DeGaulle, and the writings and speeches of Lenin and Stalin.

## MODERN CLASSICS

Harold Nicolson (1886-1968), *Diplomacy* (1963) and *The Evolution of Diplomatic Method* (1934) and *Peacemaking 1919* (1965).

Ernie May slammed Dr K for not making reference to Nicolson. This is his chance to do so.

Peter Paret, ed., *Makers of Modern Strategy* (Princeton, 1986), with selections from Machiavelli to the nuclear age.

Edward Luttwak, *Strategy, the Logic of War and Peace* (Harvard, 1987).

I don't know what Dr K thinks of Luttwak in general, but I would guess he would take exception to the fundamental assumption of this book to the effect that an entirely opposite logic governs the waging of "peace" and "war".

Gordon Craig and Felix Gilbert, eds., *The Diplomats, 1919-1939* and Craig and Francis C. Loewenheim, *The Diplomats, 1939-1979* (1994).
Useful references to foreign ministries in the 20th century.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 12

Paul Kennedy, *Grand Strategies in War and Peace* (Yale, 1991), not to mention
*The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers* (1987) and his recent book on the
coming disasters of the 21st century.

Anything by George Kennan (1904--), who holds the distinction (according to
some) of being "dean of American elder statesmen." Dr K may wish to praise
and/or critique various of Kennan's pronouncements.

Michael Howard, *War and the Liberal Conscience* (1978).

This little book is a treat. Howard describes the evolution of "peace
movements" since the 18th century and shows how silly they have been.

F. H. Hinsley, *Power and the Pursuit of Peace* (1967).

This is a little political science, but contains excellent chapters on
the theorists of a "new diplomacy" before and during the French Revolution.

Adam Watson, *Diplomacy* (1986) is also academic political science, but contains
a useful chapter on "criticisms of contemporary diplomacy."

Raymond Cohen, *Theatre of Power: the Art of Diplomatic Signalling* (Longman,
1987) describes contemporary examples, including many involving Dr K.

George Liska, *Beyond Kissinger: Ways of Conservative Statecraft* (Johns
Hopkins, 1975). I was unable to lay hands on this, but include it for
obvious reasons. Ditto for Michael I. Handel, *The Diplomacy of Surprise:
Hitler, Nixon, Sadat* (Cambridge: Center for International Affairs, 1981).

Gordon Craig and Alexander George, *Force and Statecraft* (Oxford, 1990 ed.) is
an excellent collection of essays on diplomacy in modern history. See
especially the chapter on Bismarck and Gladstone as "Christian statesmen"
and those on the impact of public opinion, economics, and ideology.

Angelo Codevilla, *Informing Statecraft: Intelligence for a New Century* (Free
Press, 1992) went unnoticed, but is a brilliant and erudite discussion of
the use and misuse of intelligence in policy-making, with historical and
contemporary examples.

Anything by Paul Schroeder, an obscure, even monkish diplomatic historian
(and Hapsburg-ophile) at the University of Illinois. He has written on
Metternich, the Crimean War, Bismarck, the origins of World Wars I and II, the
Cold War, and everything in between. He is an extremely thorough scholar and
the best illustrator of "The Law of Unintended Consequences" in foreign
policy. From him I learned the Spanish proverb to the effect that diplomacy
was a realm in which "one man can steal horses to great applause while another
is hanged for just looking over the fence." If you're interested, I can send
you a complete Schroeder bibliography. Some of his best stuff is in articles.

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 13

The same goes for Marc Trachtenberg, an indefatigable scholar of 20th century diplomacy. In *History and Strategy* (1993) he debunks all the "impersonal" theories about 1914 and places the blame on the statesmen. The book also contains a brilliant dissection of the 1958-61 Berlin crises.

In addition to the above, Dr K may wish to consult with some businessman friends, perhaps at business schools, about the literature on corporate strategic planning and the art of negotiation (getting the better of someone, closing a deal, positive-sum gaming, etc.). Comparisons between statecraft and the give-and-take of big business might not only be instructive, but catch the interest of an important book-buying block of the public.

Another arena analogous to diplomacy is gamesmanship. Allusions to games (chess, go, et al.) and sports would help "domesticate" the book and provide metaphors for international situations.

APPENDIX

Aphorisms from Diplomacy upon which Dr K may wish to elaborate:

*<Revolutionaries> prevail because the established order is unable to grasp its own vulnerability. This is especially true when the revolutionary challenge emerges not with a march on the Bastille but in conservative garb. (p 121)*

A statesman aware of approaching danger has to make a basic decision. If he believes that the threat will mount with the passage of time, he must try to nip it in the bud. But if he concludes that the looming danger reflects a fortuitous, if accidental, combination of circumstances, he is usually better off waiting and letting time erode the peril. (p 189)

Heads of government are notoriously vulnerable to arguments that question their courage. (p 214)

Woe to the leader whose arguments at the end of a war are not as plausible as they were at the beginning (from Bismarck). (p 217)

Confused leaders have a tendency to substitute public relations maneuvers for a sense of direction. (p 280)

Statesmen always face the dilemma that, when their scope for action is greatest, they have a minimum of knowledge. (p 294)

The democratic public is unforgiving in the face of debacles, even when these result from carrying out its own immediate wishes. (p 316)

It is no small irony that the twentieth century--the age of popular will and of impersonal forces--should have been forged by so few individuals. (p 351)

McDougall Memo, Jan. 18, 1995, page 14

All great leaders walk alone. They singularity springs from their ability to discern challenges that are not yet apparent to their contemporaries. (p 370)

Presidents who appear to be guileless often turn out to be the most complex. In this sense, Eisenhower was a precursor of Ronald Reagan. (p 631)

Bureaucratic compromise often reflects the subconscious hope that something will happen in the interim to cause the problem to resolve itself. (p 651)

Authors of memoranda who are not willing to fight for them are more likely to find their words turn into *ex post facto* alibis than guides to action. (p 683)

The test of a society is whether it can submerge its differences in the puruit of common objectives, and whether it can keep in mind that societies thrive on their reconciliations, not on their conflicts. (p 694)

American unity is both a duty and the hope of the world. (p 702)

In choosing among <chess> moves, one can do worse than to count the number of squares dominated by each choice. The more squares a player dominates, the greater his options and the more constrained those of his opponent. (p 719)

When a country abjures its intention of exploiting a conflict between two other parties, it is in fact signalling that it has the capacity to do so and that both parties would do well to work at preserving that neutrality. (p 724)

Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. (p 744)

Postersity is always more given to assigning the blame for failure to individuals than to circumstances. (p 791)

Revolutions consume their children because revolutionaries rarely understand that, after a certain point of social disintegration, there are no longer any fixed Archimedean points from which to exert leverage. (p 795)

History will not excuse failure by the magnitude of the task. (p 834)

What no leader must ever do is to suggest that choice has no price, or that no balance needs to be struck. (p 834)