In Defense of Henry Kissinger

He was the 20th century's greatest 19th-century statesman.

ROBERT D. KAPLAN
APR 24 2013
Henry Kissinger, photogrphe! in Ne" #or$ %ity on &r'h 11 ()rnt %ornett*
In the summer of 2002, during the initial buildup to the inasion of Ira!, which he supported, Henry "issinger told me he was neertheless concerned
about the lac# of critical thin#ing and planning for the occupation of a $iddle %astern country where, as he put it, &normal politics hae not been
practiced for decades, and where new power struggles would therefore hae to be ery iolent.' (hus is pessimism morally superior to misplaced
optimism.
I hae been a close friend of Henry "issinger)s for some time, but my relationship with him as a historical figure began decades ago. *hen I was growing
up, the receied wisdom painted him as the ogre of +ietnam. ,ater, as I e-perienced firsthand the stubborn realities of the deeloping world, and came to
understand the tas# that a liberal polity li#e the .nited /tates faced in protecting its interests, "issinger too# his place among the other political
philosophers whose boo#s I consulted to ma#e sense of it all. In the 1900s, when I was traeling through 1entral %urope and the 2al#ans, I encountered A
World Restored, "issinger)s first boo#, published in 1934, about the diplomatic aftermath of the 5apoleonic *ars. In that boo#, he laid out the
significance of 6ustria as a &polyglot %mpire 7that8 could neer be part of a structure legitimi9ed by nationalism,' and he offered a telling truth about
:reece, where I had been liing for most of the decade; whateer attraction the war for :ree# independence had held for the literati of the 1020s, it was
not born of &a reolution of middle-class origin to achiee political liberty,' he cautioned, &but a national moement with a religious basis.'
*hen policy ma#ers disparage "issinger in priate, they tend to do so in a manner that reeals how much they measure themseles against him. (he
former secretary of state turns 90 this month. (o mar# his legacy, we need to begin in the 19th century.
In 6ugust of 1022, 2ritain)s radical intelligentsia openly re<oiced upon hearing the news of =obert /tewart)s suicide. ,ord 2yron, the =omantic poet and
heroic adenturer, described /tewart, better #nown as +iscount 1astlereagh, as a &cold-blooded, > placid miscreant.' 1astlereagh, the 2ritish foreign
secretary from 1012 to 1022, had helped organi9e the military coalition that defeated 5apoleon and afterward helped negotiate a peace settlement that
#ept %urope free of large-scale iolence for decades. 2ut because the settlement restored the 2ourbon dynasty in ?rance, while proiding the forces of
,iberalism little reward for their efforts, 1astlereagh)s accomplishment lac#ed any idealistic element, without which the radicals could not be mollified. @f
course, this ery lac# of idealism, by safeguarding the aristocratic order, proided arious soereigns with the only point on which they could unite against
5apoleon and establish a continent-wide peaceAa peace, it should be noted, that helped 2ritain emerge as the dominant world power before the close of
the 19th century.
@ne person who did not re<oice at 1astlereagh)s death was Henry Bohn (emple, the future 2ritish foreign secretary, better #nown as ,ord Calmerston.
&(here could not hae been a greater loss to the :oernment,' Calmerston declared, &and few greater to the country.' Calmerston himself would soon <oin
the battle against the ..".)s radical intellectuals, who in the early 1020s demanded that 2ritain go to war to help democracy ta#e root in /pain, een
though no ital 2ritish interest had been threatenedAand een though this same intellectual class had at times shown only limited enthusiasm for the war
against 5apoleon, during which 2ritain)s ery surial seemed at sta#e.
In a career spanning more than two decades in the ?oreign @ffice, Calmerston was fated on occasion to be <ust as hated as 1astlereagh. ,i#e 1astlereagh,
Calmerston had only one immutable principle in foreign policy; 2ritish self-interest, synonymous with the preseration of the worldwide balance of
power. 2ut Calmerston also had clear liberal instincts. 2ecause 2ritain)s was a constitutional goernment, he #new that the country)s self-interest lay in
promoting constitutional goernments abroad. He showed sympathy for the 10D0 reolutions on the 1ontinent, and conse!uently was beloed by the
liberals. /till, Calmerston understood that his liberal internationalism, if one could call it that, was only a general principleAa principle that, gien the
ariety of situations around the world, re!uired constant bending. (hus, Calmerston encouraged liberalism in :ermany in the 10E0s but thwarted it there
in the 10D0s. He supported constitutionalism in Cortugal, but opposed it in /erbia and $e-ico. He supported any tribal chieftain who e-tended 2ritish
India)s sphere of influence northwest into 6fghanistan, toward =ussia, and opposed any who e-tended =ussia)s sphere of influence southeast, toward
IndiaAeen as he cooperated with =ussia in Cersia.
=eali9ing that many peopleAand radicals in particularAtended to confuse foreign policy with their own priate theology, Calmerston may hae
considered the moral condemnation that greeted him in some !uarters as natural. FBohn 2right, the ,iberal statesman, would later describe Calmerston)s
tenure as &one long crime.'G
Het without his fle-ible approach to the world, Calmerston could neer hae naigated the shoals of one foreign-policy crisis after another, helping 2ritain
Adespite the catastrophe of the Indian $utiny in 1034Amanage the transition from its ad hoc imperialism of the first half of the 19th century to the
formal, steam-drien empire built on science and trade of the second half.
Iecades passed before Calmerston)s accomplishments as arguably 2ritain)s greatest diplomat became fully apparent. In his own day, Calmerston labored
hard to presere the status !uo, een as he sincerely desired a better world. &He wanted to preent any power from becoming so strong that it might
threaten 2ritain,' one of his biographers, Basper =idley, wrote. &(o preent the outbrea# of ma<or wars in which 2ritain might be inoled and wea#ened,'
Calmerston)s foreign policy &was therefore a series of tactical improisations, which he carried out with great s#ill.'
,i#e Calmerston, Henry "issinger beliees that in difficult, uncertain timesAtimes li#e the 19J0s and )40s in 6merica, when the nation)s ulnerabilities
appeared to outweigh its opportunitiesAthe preseration of the status !uo should constitute the highest morality. @ther, luc#ier political leaders might
later discoer opportunities to encourage liberalism where before there had been none. (he tric# is to maintain one)s power undiminished until that
moment.
%nsuring a nation)s surial sometimes leaes tragically little room for priate morality. Iiscoering the inapplicability of Budeo-1hristian morality in
certain circumstances inoling affairs of state can be searing. (he rare indiiduals who hae recogni9ed the necessity of iolating such morality, acted
accordingly, and ta#en responsibility for their actions are among the most necessary leaders for their countries, een as they hae caused great unease
among generations of well-meaning intellectuals who, free of the burden of real-world bureaucratic responsibility, ma#e choices in the abstract and treat
morality as an infle-ible absolute.
?ernando Cessoa, the early-20th-century Cortuguese poet and e-istentialist writer, obsered that if the strategist &thought of the dar#ness he cast on a
thousand homes and the pain he caused in three thousand hearts,' he would be &unable to act,' and then there would be no one to sae ciili9ation from
its enemies. 2ecause many artists and intellectuals cannot accept this horrible but necessary truth, their wor#, Cessoa said, &seres as an outlet for the
sensitiity 7that8 action had to leae behind.' (hat is ultimately why Henry "issinger is despised in some !uarters, much as 1astlereagh and Calmerston
were.
(o be uncomfortable with "issinger is, as Calmerston might say, only natural. 2ut to condemn him outright erges on sanctimony, if not delusion.
"issinger has, in fact, been !uite moralAproided, of course, that you accept the 1old *ar assumptions of the age in which he operated.
2ecause of the triumphalist manner in which the 1old *ar suddenly and une-pectedly ended, many hae since iewed the *est)s ictory as a foregone
conclusion, and therefore hae tended to see the tough measures that "issinger and others occasionally too# as unwarranted. 2ut for those in the midst of
fighting the 1old *arAwho wor#ed in the national-security apparatus during the long, dreary decades when nuclear confrontation seemed abundantly
possibleAits end was hardly foreseeable.
Ceople forget what %astern %urope was li#e during the 1old *ar, especially prior to the 1900s; the combination of secret-police terror and regime-
induced poerty gae the impression of a ast, dimly lit prison yard. *hat #ept that prison yard from e-panding was mainly the pro<ection of 6merican
power, in the form of military diisions armed with nuclear weapons. (hat such weapons were neer used did not mean they were unnecessary. Kuite the
opposite, in fact; the men who planned 6rmageddon, far from being the Ir. /trangeloes satiri9ed by Hollywood, were precisely the people who #ept the
peace.$any 2aby 2oomers, who lied through the 1old *ar but who hae no personal memory of *orld *ar II, artificially separate these two conflicts.
2ut for "issinger, a Holocaust refugee and ../. 6rmy intelligence officer in occupied :ermanyL for :eneral 1reighton 6brams, a tan# commander under
:eorge Catton in *orld *ar II and the commander of 6merican forces in +ietnam from 19J0 onwardL and for :eneral $a-well (aylor, who parachuted
into 5a9i-occupied ?rance and was later the ../. ambassador to /outh +ietnam, the 1old *ar was a continuation of the /econd *orld *ar.
2eyond %astern %urope, reolutionary nihilists were attempting to ma#e more 1ubas in ,atin 6merica, while a 1ommunist regime in 1hina #illed at least
20 million of its own citi9ens through the collectii9ation program #nown as the :reat ,eap ?orward. $eanwhile, the 5orth +ietnamese 1ommunistsAas
ruthless a group of people as the 20th century producedAmurdered perhaps tens of thousands of their own citi9ens before the first 6merican troops
arried in +ietnam. Ceople forget that it was, in part, an idealistic sense of mission that helped draw us into that conflictAthe same well of idealism that
helped us fight *orld *ar II and that motiated our interentions in the 2al#ans in the 1990s. (hose who ferently supported interention in =wanda
and the former Hugoslaia yet fail to comprehend the similar logic that led us into +ietnam are bereft of historical memory.
In +ietnam, 6merica)s idealism collided head-on with the military limitations imposed by a difficult geography. (his destroyed the political consensus in
the .nited /tates about how the 1old *ar should be waged. =eiewing "issinger)s boo# Ending the Vietnam War F200EG, the historian and <ournalist
%an (homas implied that the essence of "issinger)s tragedy was that he was perennially trying to gain membership in a club that no longer e-isted. (hat
club was &the %stablishment,' a term that began to go out of fashion during the nation)s +ietnam trauma. (he %stablishment comprised all the great and
prestigious personages of business and foreign policyAall male, all Crotestant, men li#e Bohn B. $c1loy and 1harles 2ohlenAwhose influence and
pragmatism bridged the gap between the =epublican and Iemocratic Carties at a time when 1ommunism was the enemy, <ust as ?ascism had recently
been. "issinger, a Bew who had escaped the Holocaust, was perhaps the club)s most brilliant protMgM. His fate was to step into the orte- of foreign policy
<ust as the %stablishment was brea#ing up oer how to e-tricate the country from a war that the %stablishment itself had helped lead the country into.
"issinger became Cresident =ichard 5i-on)s national-security adiser in Banuary of 19J9, and his secretary of state in 194E. 6s a Harard professor and
&=oc#efeller =epublican,' "issinger was distrusted by the anti-intellectual =epublican right wing. F$eanwhile, the Iemocratic Carty was slipping into the
de facto !uasi-isolationism that would soon be associated with :eorge $c:oern)s &1ome Home, 6merica' slogan.G 5i-on and "issinger inherited from
Cresident ,yndon Bohnson a situation in which almost 330,000 6merican troops, as well as their /outh +ietnamese allies Fat least 1 million soldiers all
toldG, were fighting a similar number of 5orth +ietnamese troops and guerrillas. @n the home front, demonstratorsAdrawn in large part from the nation)s
economic and educational eliteAwere demanding that the .nited /tates withdraw all its troops irtually immediately.
/ome prominent 6merican protesters een isited 5orth +ietnam to publicly e-press solidarity with the enemy. (he 1ommunists, in turn, seduced foreign
supporters with soothing assurances of Hanoi)s willingness to compromise. *hen 1harles de :aulle was negotiating a withdrawal of ?rench troops from
6lgeria in the late 1930s and early 19J0s Fas "issinger records in Ending the Vietnam WarG, the 6lgerians #new that if they did not stri#e a deal with him,
his replacement would certainly be more hard-line. 2ut the 5orth +ietnamese probably figured the oppositeAthat because of the rise of $c:oernism in
the Iemocratic Carty, 5i-on and "issinger were all that stood in the way of 6merican surrender. (hus, 5i-on and "issinger)s negotiating position was
infinitely more difficult than de :aulle)s had been.
"issinger found himself caught between liberals who essentially wanted to capitulate rather than negotiate, and conseraties ambialent about the war
who belieed that serious negotiations with 1hina and the /oiet .nion were tantamount to selling out. 2oth positions were fantasies that only those out
of power could indulge.
?urther complicating "issinger)s problem was the paramount assumption of the ageAthat the 1old *ar would hae no end, and therefore regimes li#e
those in 1hina and the /oiet .nion would hae to be dealt with indefinitely. Hitler, a fiery reolutionary, had e-pended himself after 12 bloody years. 2ut
$ao Nedong and ,eonid 2re9hne oersaw dull, plodding machines of repression that were in power for decadesAa !uarter century in $ao)s case, and
more than half a century in 2re9hne)s. 5either regime showed any sign of collapse. (reating 1ommunist 1hina and the /oiet .nion as legitimate states,
een while "issinger played 1hina off against the /oiet .nion and negotiated nuclear-arms agreements with the latter, did not constitute a sellout, as
some conseraties alleged. It was, rather, a recognition of 6merica)s &eternal and perpetual interests,' to !uote Calmerston, refitted to an age threatened
by thermonuclear war.
In the face of liberal capitulation, a conseratie flight from reality, and 5orth +ietnam)s relentlessness, "issinger)s tas# was to withdraw from the region
in a way that did not betray 6merica)s /outh +ietnamese allies. In doing so, he sought to presere 6merica)s powerful reputation, which was crucial for
dealing with 1hina and the /oiet .nion, as well as the nations of the $iddle %ast and ,atin 6merica. /ir $ichael Howard, the eminent 2ritish war
historian, notes that the balance-of-power ethos to which "issinger subscribes represents the middle ground between &optimistic 6merican ecumenicism'
Fthe basis for many global-disarmament moementsG and the &war culture' of the 6merican *ild *est Fin recent times associated with Cresident :eorge
*. 2ushG. (his ethos was neer cynical or amoral, as the postO1old *ar generation has tended to assert. =ather, it einced a timeless and enlightened
principle of statesmanship.
Kissinger 'on+ers "ith Presi!ent Lyn!on ,ohnson not -ong +ter .eing ppointe! to Ri'hr! Ni/on0s ntion-1se'2rity te3. De'e3.er 4, 1567 (Asso'ite! Press*
*ithin two years, 5i-on and "issinger reduced the number of 6merican troops in +ietnam to 13J,000L the last ground combat forces left three and a half
years after 5i-on too# office. It had ta#en 1harles de :aulle longer than that to end ?rance)s inolement in 6lgeria. F?rustration oer the failure to
withdraw een !uic#er rests on two difficult assumptions; that the impossibility of presering /outh +ietnam in any form was accepted in 19J9, and that
the 5orth +ietnamese had always been negotiating in good faith. /till, the continuation of the war past 19J9 will foreer be 5i-on)s and "issinger)s
original sin.G
(hat successful troop withdrawal was facilitated by a bombing incursion into 1ambodiaAprimarily into areas replete with 5orth +ietnamese military
redoubts and small ciilian populations, oer which the 1ambodian goernment had little control. (he bombing, called &secret' by the media, was public
#nowledge during 90 percent of the time it was carried out, wrote /amuel Huntington, the late Harard professor who sered on Cresident Bimmy 1arter)s
5ational /ecurity 1ouncil. (he early secrecy, he noted, was to aoid embarrassing 1ambodia)s Crince 5orodom /ihanou# and complicating peace tal#s
with the 5orth +ietnamese.
(he troop withdrawals were also facilitated by aerial bombardments of 5orth +ietnam. +ictor Iais Hanson, the neoconseratie historian, writes that,
&far from being ineffectie and indiscriminate,' as many critics of the 5i-on-"issinger war effort later claimed, the 1hristmas bombings of Iecember 1942
in particular &brought the communists bac# to the peace table through its destruction of <ust a few #ey installations.' Hanson may be a neoconseratie,
but his iew is hardly a radical reinterpretation of historyL in fact, he is simply reading the news accounts of the era. /oon after the 1hristmas bombings,
$alcolm *. 2rowne of The New York Times found the damage to hae been &grossly oerstated by 5orth +ietnamese propaganda.' Ceter *ard, a
reporter for The Baltimore Sun, wrote, &%idence on the ground disproes charges of indiscriminate bombing. /eeral bomb loads obiously went astray
into ciilian residential areas, but damage there is minor, compared to the total destruction of selected targets.'
(he ritualistic ehemence with which many hae condemned the bombings of 5orth +ietnam, the incursion into 1ambodia, and other eents betrays, in
certain cases, an ignorance of the facts and of the conte-t that informed 6merica)s difficult decisions during +ietnam.
(he troop withdrawals that 5i-on and "issinger engineered, while faster than de :aulle)s had been from 6lgeria, were gradual enough to preent
complete 6merican humiliation. (his preseration of 6merica)s global standing enabled the president and the secretary of state to manage a historic
reconciliation with 1hina, which helped proide the re!uisite leerage for a landmar# strategic arms pact with the /oiet .nionAeen as, in 1940, 5i-on
and "issinger)s threats to $oscow helped stop /yrian tan#s from crossing farther into Bordan and toppling "ing Hussein. 6t a time when defeatism
reigned, "issinger improised in a way that would hae impressed Calmerston.
Hes, "issinger)s record is mar#ed by nasty tactical miscalculationsAmista#es that hae spawned whole libraries of boo#s. 2ut the notion that the 5i-on
administration might hae withdrawn more than 300,000 6merican troops from +ietnam within a few months in 19J9 is problematic, especially when
one considers the comple-ities that smaller and more gradual withdrawals in 2osnia, Ira!, and 6fghanistan later imposed on military planners. F6nd
that)s leaing aside the diplomatic and strategic fallout beyond /outheast 6sia that 6merica)s sudden and complete betrayal of a longtime ally would hae
generated.G
Iespite the 5orth +ietnamese inasion of eastern 1ambodia in 1940, the ../. 1ongress substantially cut aid between 1941 and 194D to the ,on 5ol regime,
which had replaced Crince /ihanou#)s, and also barred the ../. 6ir ?orce from helping ,on 5ol fight against the "hmer =ouge. ?uture historians will
consider those actions more instrumental in the 1943 "hmer =ouge ta#eoer of 1ambodia than 5i-on)s bombing of sparsely populated regions of
1ambodia si- years earlier.
*hen /aigon fell to the 1ommunists, in 6pril of 1943, it was after a heaily Iemocratic 1ongress drastically cut aid to the /outh +ietnamese. (he regime
might not hae suried een if 1ongress had not cut aid so seerely. 2ut that cutoff, one should recall, was not merely a statement about /outh +ietnam)s
hopelessnessL it was a conse!uence of *atergate, in which 5i-on eiscerated his own influence in the capital, and seriously undermined :erald ?ord)s
incoming administration. "issinger)s own words in Ending the Vietnam War desere to echo through the ages;
5one of us could imagine that a collapse of presidential authority would follow the e-pected sweeping electoral ictory 7of 5i-on
in 19428. *e were coninced that we were wor#ing on an agreement that could be sustained by our /outh +ietnamese allies with
6merican help against an all-out inasion. Crotesters could spea# of +ietnam in terms of the e-cesses of an aberrant society, but
when my colleagues and I thought of +ietnam, it was in terms of dedicated men and womenAsoldiers and ?oreign /erice
officersAwho had struggled and suffered there and of our +ietnamese associates now condemned to face an uncertain but surely
painful fate. (hese 6mericans had honestly belieed that they were defending the cause of freedom against a brutal enemy in
treacherous <ungles and distant rice paddies. +ilified by the media, assailed in 1ongress, and ridiculed by the protest moement,
they had sustained 6merica)s idealistic tradition, ris#ing their lies and e-pending their youth on a struggle that 6merican
leadership groups had initiated, then abandoned, and finally disdained.
"issinger)s diplomatic achieements reached far beyond /outheast 6sia. 2etween 194E and 1943, "issinger, sering 5i-on and then :erald ?ord, steered
the Hom "ippur *ar toward a stalemate that was conenient for 6merican interests, and then bro#ered agreements between Israel and its 6rab
adersaries for a separation of forces. (hose deals allowed *ashington to reestablish diplomatic relations with %gypt and /yria for the first time since
their rupture following the /i- Iay *ar in 19J4. (he agreements also established the conte-t for the %gyptian- Israeli peace treaty of 1949, and helped
stabili9e a modus iendi between Israel and /yria that has lasted well past the turn of the 21st century.
In the fall of 194E, with 1hile dissoling into chaos and open to the /oiet bloc)s infiltration as a result of /alador 6llende)s anarchic and incompetent
rule, 5i-on and "issinger encouraged a military coup led by :eneral 6ugusto Cinochet, during which thousands of innocent people were #illed. (heir cold
moral logic was that a right-wing regime of any #ind would ultimately be better for 1hile and for ,atin 6merica than a leftist regime of any #indAand
would also be in the best interests of the .nited /tates. (hey were rightAthough at a perhaps intolerable cost.
*hile much of the rest of ,atin 6merica dithered with socialist e-periments, in the first seen years of Cinochet)s regime, the number of state companies
in 1hile went from 300 to 23Aa shift that helped lead to the creation of more than 1 million <obs and the reduction of the poerty rate from roughly one- -
third of the population to as low as one-tenth. (he infant mortality rate also shran#, from 40 deaths per 1,000 births to 10. (he 1hilean social and
economic miracle has become a paradigm throughout the deeloping world, and in the e--1ommunist world in particular. /till, no amount of economic
and social gain <ustifies almost two decades of systematic torture perpetrated against tens of thousands of ictims in more than 1,000 detention centers.
2ut real history is not the trumpeting of ugly facts untempered by historical and philosophical conte-tAthe stuff of much inestigatie <ournalism. =eal
history is built on constant comparison with other epochs and other parts of the world. It is particularly useful, therefore, to compare the records of the
?ord and 1arter administrations in the Horn of 6frica, and especially in %thiopiaAa country that in the 1940s was more than three times as populous as
Cinochet)s 1hile.
In his later years, "issinger has not been able to trael to a number of countries where legal threats regarding his actions in the 1940s in ,atin 6merica
hang oer his head. Het in those same countries, Bimmy 1arter is regarded almost as a saint. ,et)s consider how 1arter)s morality stac#s up against
"issinger)s in the case of %thiopia, which, li#e 6ngola, 5icaragua, and 6fghanistan, was among the dominoes that became increasingly unstable and then
fell in the months and years following /aigon)s collapse, partly disproing another myth of the +ietnam antiwar protest moementAthat the domino
theory was wrong.
6s I)e written elsewhere, including in my 1900 boo#, Surrender or Starve, the left-leaning %thiopian Iergue and its ascetic, pitiless new leader, $engistu
Haile $ariam, had risen to power while the ../. was preoccupied with *atergate and the fall of /outh +ietnam. "issinger, now Cresident ?ord)s secretary
of state, tried to retain influence in %thiopia by continuing to proide some military assistance to 6ddis 6baba. Had the .nited /tates gien up all its
leerage in %thiopia, the country might hae moed to the ne-t stage and become a /oiet satellite, with disastrous human- rights conse!uences for its
entire population.
?ord and "issinger were replaced in Banuary of 1944 by Bimmy 1arter and his secretary of state, 1yrus +ance, who wanted a policy that was both more
attuned to and less heay-handed toward sub-/aharan 6frica. In the Horn of 6frica, this translated immediately into a 1old *ar disadantage for
6merica, because the /oietsAspurred on by the fall of /outh +ietnamAwere becoming more belligerent, and more willing to e-pend resources, than eer.
*ith %thiopia torn apart by reolutionary turmoil, the /oiets used their /omali clients as a leer against 6ddis 6baba. /omalia then was a country of only
E million nomads, but %thiopia had an urbani9ed population 10 times that si9e; e-cellent proender for the mechani9ed 6frican satellite that became
,eonid 2re9hne)s supreme ob<ectie. (he /oiets, while threatening %thiopia by supplying its rial with weapons, were also offering it military aidAthe
classic carrot-and-stic# strategy. Het partly because of the $-J0 tan#s and ?-3 warplanes that $engistu was stillAlargely than#s to "issingerAreceiing
from the .nited /tates, the %thiopian leader was hesitant about underta#ing the disruptie tas# of switching munitions suppliers for an entire army.
In the spring of 1944, 1arter cut off arms delieries to %thiopia because of its human-rights record. (he /oiets dispatched %ast :erman security police to
6ddis 6baba to help $engistu consolidate his regime, and inited the %thiopian ruler to $oscow for a wee#-long state isit. (hen 1uban
adisers isited %thiopia, een while tan#s and other e!uipment arried from pro-/oiet /outh Hemen. In the following months, with the help of the %ast
:ermans, the Iergue gunned down hundreds of %thiopian teenagers in the streets in what came to be #nown as the &=ed (error.'
/till, all was not lostAat least not yet. (he %thiopian =eolution, leftist as it was, showed relatiely few oert signs of anti- 6mericanism. Israel)s new prime
minister, $enachem 2egin, in an attempt to sae %thiopian Bews, beseeched 1arter not to close the door completely on %thiopia and to gie $engistu
some military assistance against the /omali adance.
2ut 2egin)s plea went unheeded. (he partial result of 1arter)s in action was that %thiopia went from being yet another left-leaning regime to a full-fledged
$ar-ist state, in which hundreds of thousands of people died in collectii9ation and &illagi9ation' schemesAto say nothing of the hundreds of thousands
who died in famines that were as much a conse!uence of made-in-$oscow agricultural policies as they were of drought.
%thiopians should hae been so luc#y as to hae had a Cinochet.
(he lin# between 1arter)s decision not to play "issingerian power politics in the Horn of 6frica and the mass deaths that followed in %thiopia is more
direct than the lin# between 5i-on)s incursion into a rural area of 1ambodia and the "hmer =ouge ta#eoer si- years later.
In the late 19th century, ,ord Calmerston was still a controersial figure. 2y the 20th, he was considered by many to hae been one of 2ritain)s greatest
foreign ministers. "issinger)s reputation will follow a similar path. @f all the memoirs written by former 6merican secretaries of state and national -
security adisers during the past few decades, his are certainly the most ast and the most intellectually stimulating, reealing the elaborate historical and
philosophical milieu that surround difficult foreign-policy decisions. "issinger will hae the final say precisely because he writes so much better for a
general audience than do most of his critics. $ere e-posM often has a shorter shelf life than the wor# of a statesman aware of his own tragic circumstances
and able to connect them to a larger pattern of eents. 6 colleague of mine with e-perience in goernment once noted that, as a %uropean- style realist,
"issinger has thought more about morality and ethics than most self-styled moralists. =ealism is about the ultimate moral ambition in foreign policy; the
aoidance of war through a faorable balance of power.
6side from the successful interentions in the 2al#ans, the greatest humanitarian gesture in my own lifetime was Cresident =ichard 5i-on)s trip to the
Ceople)s =epublic of 1hina in 1942, engineered by "issinger. 2y dropping the notion that (aiwan was the real 1hina, by giing 1hina protection against
the /oiet .nion, and by proiding assurances against an economically resurgent Bapan, the two men helped place 1hina in a position to deote itself to
peaceful economic deelopmentL 1hina)s economic rise, facilitated by Ieng Piaoping, would lift much of 6sia out of poerty. 6nd as more than 1 billion
people in the ?ar %ast saw a dramatic improement in liing standards, personal freedom effloresced.
Cundits chastised "issinger for saying, in 194E, that Bewish emi gration from the /oiet .nion was &not an 6merican concern.' 2ut as B. B. :oldberg of
The Jewish Daily orward was careful to note Feen while being ery critical of "issinger)s cynicism on the sub<ectG, &%migration rose dramatically under
"issinger)s detente policy'A but &plummeted' after the 194D passage of the Bac#son-+ani# amendment, which made an open emigration policy a
precondition for normal .././oiet trade relationsL aggrieed that the 6mericans would presume to dictate their emigration policies, the /oiets began
authori9ing fewer e-it isas. In other words, "issinger)s realism was more effectie than the humanitarianism of Bewish groups in addressing a human-
rights concern.
"issinger is a Bewish intellectual who recogni9es a singular unappealing truth; that the =epublican Carty, its strains of anti-/emitism in certain periods
notwithstanding, was better able to protect 6merica than the Iemocratic Carty of his era, because the =epublicans better understood and, in fact, relished
the pro<ection of 6merican power at a <uncture in the 1old *ar when the Iemocrats were undermined by defeatism and !uasi-isolationism. F(hat
"issinger-style realism is now more popular in 2arac# @bama)s *hite House than among the :@C indicates how far today)s =epublicans hae drifted
from their core alues.G
2ut unli#e his fellow =epublicans of the 1old *ar eraAdull and practical men of business, blissfully unaware of what the prestigious intellectual <ournals
of opinion had to say about themA"issinger has always been painfully conscious of the de gree to which he is loathed. He made life-and-death decisions
that affected millions, entailing many messy moral compromises. Had it not been for the tough decisions 5i-on, ?ord, and "issinger made, the .nited
/tates might not hae withstood the damage caused by 1arter)s bouts of moralistic ineptitudeL nor would =onald =eagan hae had the lu-ury of his
successfully e-ecuted *ilsonianism. Henry "issinger)s classical realismAas e-pressed in both his boo#s and his statecraftAis emotionally unsatisfying but
analytically timeless. (he degree to which =epublicans can recoer his sensibility in foreign policy will help determine their own prospects for regaining
power.
ROBERT D. KAPLAN
is the chief geopolitical analyst at /tratfor and a national correspondent for The Atlanti!. He is the author, most recently,
of The Revenge o" #eogra$hy.