# Henry Kissinger

### Financial Enterprise

The world has undergone some tremendous changes recently. What role has US foreign policy played in those changes?

### Henry Kissinger

If you look at what has occurred in American foreign policy of the last two years, it could certainly be argued that it is only rarely a nation achieves as much as the United States has in that brief a period. And if one compares what American leaders in the '40's and '50's were trying to accomplish with what actually transpired, one finds a truly astonishing correspondence. What makes this so unusual is that nobody really expected it.

When President Bush was first elected, I spoke before a relatively small group and said that I thought the dominant event of his presidency would be the gradual disintegration of Communist rule in Eastern Europe. "Gradual disintegration!" Not only did I think it would take several years, it also did not occur to me that the same would happen in the Soviet Union.

And if on August 1st of last year somebody had said that by the end of this year we would have 550,000 troops in the Persian Gulf and fight a major war deep within Iraq—which the Soviet Union was neither able nor willing to oppose—I cannot think of a single foreign policy expert who would have conceded to its being possible. Now I was an early advocate of strong action in the region, but that was in the first few days of our involvement when I thought of "strong action" as very strong indeed if it got Turkey and Saudi Arabia to block the oil pipeline and undertake a unilateral blockade.

### FE

So you think that US foreign policy has helped shape this "new world order"?

### HK

We have achieved huge success in the Middle East, and historic victory in the Soviet Union. Now what do we do? George Bernard Shaw once said, "There are two tragedies in life: one is to fail to achieve your heart's desire; the other is to achieve it." So, there is always the possibility that our successes of the past two years were less the stirrings of a new world order than the final gasps of the old world order.

What America is best at is identifying a problem, overwhelming it with its resources, working at it with enormous single-minded determination, and then convincing itself that once it is over, we can simply go back home. But foreign policy is really a seamless historical process in which the obvious solution to one problem is the admission ticket to a whole new series of problems. It is like being in a never-ending maze through which one might navigate this way or that, but which can never be said to stop completely.

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Financial Enterprise

The Magazine of GE Capital

### FE

That's an interesting notion. Could you give an example of what you mean?

### HK

At the end of World War I, Woodrow Wilson appeared on the European scene. Now if European history teaches us anything, it is that for a thousand years of modern Europe—and another thousand of ancient history before that—wars were so prevalent and occurred for so many different reasons, they have become a sort of congenital European trait. Then along came Woodrow Wilson professing that peace among nations is the true and natural state, easily attainable if all countries are democratic; for if all people have the same type of government, there would no longer be any reason for war. As a result, the overwhelming philosophical aim of the period became the break-up of the empires of Europe.

This was a marvelous dream, but it did not merit the

Fall 1991

claim that such is the natural course of events, or that history
proves it true. Indeed, history proves no such thing. Maybe
it should prove it. Maybe it is what we should be striving for.

But, whether we like it or not, it is now 70 years later and
we have come back to where it all began; the rivalries in
Europe are still the same because it turns out too many
nations seek self-determination as a way of dominating the
ethnic minorities inside their borders.

FE Do you see that same pattern in the Middle East as in Eastern Europe?

HK In Eastern Europe, the imposed governments were essentially contrary to the historic tradition of countries such as Czechoslovakia, which had always been a democracy. In the Middle East, that is not necessarily the case. Whether or not we like the governments there, most of the time they *do* reflect what was already in place. Certain Middle East countries are under strong fundamentalist domination, so I do not expect the same kind of cataclysmic change that occurred in Eastern Europe—unless it is the collapse of traditional, feudal, type of government. And *that*, in certain cases, could portend serious problems for the West.

FE It seems, then, that our leaders don't have many rules or guidelines to help them in making their decisions.

HK The task of a leader is to take his country from where it is to where it has never been. This means he has to break the mold, to some extent, and prevail against those whose commitment is to the status quo, which invariably includes the experts. So the leader is above all someone who possesses a vision of the future. But if he gets too far ahead of his constituency, he will lose his support base; if he confines himself only to what people have already done, he will invite stagnation. Thus one of the qualities of being a true leader is to define the art of the possible; historically, great leaders tend to operate at the margins of what is possible.

If you look back at the recent Middle East crisis, it becomes clear that the President was operating pretty much alone in deciding what had to be done. Had there been a different president, or a normal decision-making process, we probably would not have undertaken the same action. Now I never attach too much importance to "normal decision-making processes" because institutions are judged by the quality of their decisions, not by the quality of their decision-making process. You have no right to be in charge if you are not prepared to overrule your subordinates.

FE And events seem to have proved the President right. He managed to get the entire country behind his decision.

HK As it turned out, most of the proponents of the post-war argument that we did not press the war far enough were the same people who were totally opposed to the war to begin with. What the President had to keep in mind was that he pursued the war beyond a certain point, these same people would have re-emerged as opponents of the war.

FE Do you think that the President took that war far enough?

HK The criticism now being made of President Bush is, in effect, “Look at the mess. We fought, we won, and there is still a mess over there. So what, really, have we achieved?” Certainly that is the case, but by American standards it has been a mess for 3,000 years and there is a good chance it will be one for a substantial period in the future. Our role cannot be to end every crisis in the world, but to prevent them from threatening us. What we have achieved in the Middle East is to prevent domination of the region by a radical country.

Had Iraq not been stopped, the almost certain outcome

Henry A. Kissinger has had a long and distinguished career in the academic world, government and business.

While he was a professor of government and politics at Harvard University, he served as a consultant to various federal agencies. President Richard M. Nixon named him assistant for national security affairs, and then secretary of state. He headed the State Department during both the Nixon and Ford administrations, and

Richard M. Nixon named him assistant for national security affairs, and then secretary of state. He headed the State Department during both the Nixon and Ford administrations, and won the 1973 Nobel peace prize for his role in

both the Nixon and Ford administrations, and won the 1973 Nobel peace prize for his role in bringing an end to the Vietnam conflict. He also

helped negotiate the end of hostilities between Egypt and Israel.

helped negotiate the end of hostilities between Egypt and Israel. Since retiring from public office, Dr. Kissinger has served as a consultant to both government and business. Recently, he was the featured speaker in GE Capital's Executive Dialogue Series, and shared some of his thoughts with

Financial Enterprise.

Financial Enterprise

The Magazine of GE Capital

Fall 1991

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would have been either a new war between the remaining moderates and the radical states, or a war between Arabs and Israelis with imponderable consequences would-almost surely have come into play.

**FE** In light of what has occurred, what hopes do you have for seeing a resolution of the differences between Israel and its Arab neighbors, especially the Palestinians?

**HK** The problem for Israel is that it is situated in a very narrow strip of land with a very narrow margin. When you see the West Bank on the map, it looks like a big territory. But the actual distance from Jerusalem to the Jordan River is only about 20 miles. The whole territory from the Jordan River to the sea is but another 30. The whole West Bank is only some 40 miles long and 20 to 30 miles deep.

Now to say that you can squeeze two states into that area and that they will coexist securely is not a self-evident proposition—especially since most of the Palestinians agitating for this are not the West Bank Palestinians but those who live outside the West Bank; who, by definition, come from the Israeli portion of the Palestine.

**FE** Returning, for a moment, to our earlier discussion of leadership, many great leaders have had mentors who have guided them in developing their leadership skills—in learning to draw that fine line between the possible and the impossible that you spoke of. How important do you think it is to have a mentor?

**HK** It all depends on what you mean by "mentor." If you mean somebody who advances your career by pushing you forward more rapidly than you otherwise would have advanced, then the search for a mentor can produce a kind of obsequiousness which leads to stagnation. On the other hand, if one defines "mentor" as a role model, someone who sets an example regardless of whether he can do anything for you, then mentors, in that sense, are very important. But mentors whose chief contribution is to move their friends up along the ladder are, in the end, merely debilitating.

**FE** What has been most important to you in shaping your own career?

**HK** I find that whenever I tried to plan something meticulously about my career, it never worked out the way I planned. But whenever I did what I thought was important and interesting, and did it fully, it tended to have good practical consequences. Now whether that was just luck or something that everybody ought to try to do, I just don't know. But I do know that I went from a junior professor to Secretary of State and that had I planned it, I think it might never have happened. So I usually advise people to do what they think is fun and to do it fully, because then, at least, they will have no regrets.

**FE** One final question, Dr. Kissinger. Politics and economics are often interwoven. What do you see ahead for the US and for the global economy?

**HK** It seems to me that the financial expansion of the 1980's was really a technical expansion. People were finding new instruments by which to achieve leverage, but this did not really add productive capacity or real value; instead, we had a sort of grand manipulation of the system. I think that in the '90's we will see a reorientation of international as well as domestic economics.

If the financial institutions understand these trends, they can orient themselves less toward technical operation than to the creation of real values—and also to the analysis of where the real, significant, changes are occurring. For example, Latin America, into which we poured too much money in the '70's, now, in the '90's, offers extraordinary opportunities—free market economics, much more democratic institutions, and privatization of state-run industries. The same is true of Southeast Asia and, in time, as the economy of the Soviet Union revives, it may be true there too.

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Financial Enterprise

The Magazine of GE Capital

Fall 1991