Henry Kissinger wasn't American. Not only due to origin – he was born a 100 years ago in a judaic household in Bavaria.
The fact that he was not an American did not, first of all, make a clear German accent preserved by him for the remainder of his life. Kissinger was American, but he wasn't American.
Being the most distinctive character of the Yankee abroad policy, he did not represent its most distinctive feature: demoliberic missionaryism, giving birth to the desire for revolutionary transformation of the planet about all generation, erstwhile the existing state of affairs ceases to correspond progressively to the increasingly liberal notions of ideological heirs of extremist Protestantism and the enlightened revolution of 1776. Kissinger, however, utilized the U.S. mecca of refugees and immigrants to the maximum possible extent. Persecuted in native Germany, where he was blocked from access to the educational path, in America he utilized academic institutions to climb the ladder of power. utilizing the central function of universities in the selection and formation of the elite that controls US abroad policy in the second half of the 20th century, he built his position on the technological achievements and expert cognition of the historian.
After leaving the authoritative political scene, he utilized his experience to make money: his consulting firm Kissinger Associates received advanced commissions from generous donors, including abroad ones, offering companies and governments a deep insight into the strategy instead. The news channel created by Kissinger utilized 8 US presidents for half a century – from Carter to Biden.
Order unchangeable and unstable
Already your doctoral thesis "The planet Restored" (1957) Kissinger dedicated himself to the Vienna Congress, in its subtitle paying attention to the "problems of peace". The summary of the words “problems” and “peace” indicates that the author was fascinated not so much by “peace” in the sense of no wars as “order”, “balance” – Roman “pax”. Peace can be structurally unchangeable – agreed by the main centres of force, jointly legitimized by them, to preserve which they jointly undertake. This option remains in dynamic balance, as it represents a strategy of connected vessels and weakening 1 of its elements is balanced by the stableness of the strategy by the others. This was the Vienna strategy constructed by Metternich and negotiated at a 1815 legislature with Castlereagh.
However, there is besides a variant of the Hegemonic Peace: a power imposed by the dominant at a given moment, unilaterally beneficial to it, and consequently, challenged by the victims, so structurally unstable and unstable. Any weakening of the hegemon or the increase of a competitive force centre will disorganize the hegemonic strategy and origin its collapse. The stableness of the hegemonic strategy depends on 1 origin alone, not on the strategy of mutually complementary factors, as in the strategy of balance of forces. No origin can be permanent, due to the fact that everything in the planet is entropy and fluctuating, so the hegemonic strategy is structurally flawed and doomed to fall. Unlike pluralistic systems (force balance), coaxial (hegemonic) systems have limited homeostasis capacity and are little flexible, being little adapted to the dynamic and spontaneous-creative nature of reality. Kissinger expressed his praise for the power balance strategy and criticism of the hegemonic strategy in the mid-20th century, but not until January 1, 1990 Charles Krauthammer announced in abroad Affairs, a semi-official forum for communicating the views of the US political elite, "The Unipolar Moment". This activated the revolutionary, almost Trotsky longing of the victorious superpower in the Cold War for the transformation of the planet into a demoliberal fashion.
About Russia
Kissinger was heading in a different direction. Unlike the Yankees, their political tradition and state ideology, the Secretary of State in the administration of presidents dictates this Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford tried to integrate another force centres within the Yankee globalist system, not defeat or destruct them. First of all, it afraid relaxation in relations with the russian Union in the 1970s. At that time the U.S. was stuck in Indochina and troubled by the decomposition of interior socio-cultural and economical subsystems.
The ratio of the size of the arms of the USSR and the US began to dangerously approach the parity for the latter. Washington lost the Cold War and feared a geopolitical defeat in Europe. His ruling elite has come to the conclusion that the country needs a minute of rest, while abroad policy needs to ease tensions and gain time. The architect of this policy was Kissinger, later criticized by the “Cassandrian” communicative communities, of which neoconservatives were to be born in the late 1970s and 1980s. It besides deviated from the political correctness of Kissinger's position against the current war in Ukraine. He was skeptical of the anticipation of recapture of Crimea and territories lost by Ukraine in the spring of 2022, weakening the enthusiasm of supporters of unilateral hegemony of stars and lanes, for which the task of Moscow would should be a decisive defeat. Kissinger proposed to transform Ukraine into a buffer in relations with Russia, alternatively of creating a imagination of "regime change" in the Kremlin. He warned against pushing specified a militant rhetoric of Russia into the embrace of Beijing.
About China
The second component of Kissinger's "great strategy" was the beginning up by the US to China in 1972. At the time, the Secretary of State did not mean simply to usage cracks in the Communist bloc and to turn the weaker of US enemies against the stronger – it was Kissinger who succeeded full and is inactive considered a diplomat's masterpiece, although critics accuse the building's then host Harry S Truman in Foggy Bottom insufficient usage of Washington's lead and going to Beijing for besides far-reaching concessions on Taiwan. Kissinger, however, meant much more than turning Zhönguó against Russia. He wanted to affect the People's Republic of China in Yankee globalisation and make the mediate State a junior star and belt partner. He did not believe in the democratisation and westernization of China, but he believed that – quoting the message Xi Jinpinga from the last gathering with Joe Biden in San Francisco in mid-November – "The planet is large adequate to accommodate the United States and ChinaIt’s okay. ” He sought to build a global condominium of Beijing and Washington, being convinced of the request for their collaboration to keep order (pax) in the world. He did not believe that the United States would be able to keep this order on its own. He knew that the collapse of structurally unstable U.S. hegemony would lead to the collapse of the world's importance besides of the Yankee liberal-democratic ideals that enabled him in the late 1930s. uncovering shelter in North America from anti-Semitic policies of German national socialists.
The thought of incorporating China into the American global Kissinger strategy was worked for the remainder of his life. He wanted to usage the Confucian fondness of Chinese to order and social harmony, resembling his "European" view of the world, in which he viewed the "powers concert" and the coordination of major player policies within a single system. Another binding origin for China under the global strategy headed by the US was that, in its concept, the safety of the "narrow throats", which was guaranteed by the North American Thalassocracy in the form of maritime straits.
In July of that year Kissinger was admitted in Beijing, indicating Xi Jinping's search for communication channels to ease the strained relations with Washington today. Kissinger felt that the North American and Chinese powers were liable for each another and for the world; "one needs another", and "the conflict with the usage of modern technologies (...) would be a disaster for humanity." In May, he said that "the leaders of both countries have a work to prevent this" and to renew channels of communication. As a result, during this summit in San Francisco on 15 November, the presidential "hot line" was re-launched and communication between the US Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army resumed. Kissinger's proceedings towards Zhöngguo grew out of a deep knowing of the civilizational circumstances of the country's abroad policy, which he demonstrated in the work "About China" (2011). By knowing the cultural prerequisites of China's geopolitical ambitions and the conditions for their way of doing politics, even after retiring, he was a multiple envoy of Washington to that country – for the last time on 20 July 2023.
Kissinger could talk to the Chinese. – starting with an intelligence experience and an highly hard negotiator Zhou Enlaia – by knowing the fundamental principles of the local civilization: mutually beneficial relations (guanxi) and respect for the counterparty (names). He understood that in order to break the hostility and establish a relation with Beijing, it was essential to make an atmosphere of trust and common respect. He utilized this cognition during visits to the mediate State in 1971, preparing the ground for establishing diplomatic relations between the US and the PRC.
Hermeneutics and threats to her
As National safety Advisor (1969-1975) and U.S. Secretary of State (1973-1977), Kissinger introduced a fresh customized in the form of a thorough survey of intelligence materials exposing the way of life, education, and careers of planet leaders he had to deal with. Kissinger tried to realize them, get into their worldviews and intentions. In this sense, he was a “European” – a ‘world man’, so different from the Yankee ‘provinces’, trying to interpret and value the behaviour of others through the prism of their own axiology and their own cultural codes.
This method of Kissinger is perfectly visible in his last – in the planet underestimated and in Poland unnoticed – work “Leadership: Six Studies in planet Strategy" (2023), on specified an analysis of the motives for action Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle, Richard Nixon, Anwara as-Sadata, Lee Kuan Yew and Margaret Thatcher. Kissinger formulates his imagination of the US's external policy, taking into account the geopolitical and cultural codes of another nations, embodied by their political leaders. He besides warned Kissinger against artificial intelligence and more general civilization trends, which it is simply a manifestation of. In co-written with Eric Schmidt and Daniel Huttenlocher An article published in the "Wall Street Journal" on 24 February 2023 compares artificial intelligence to the invention of the 1555 printing press. However, while the second allowed to velocity up the communication of abstract human cognition and to grow its scope, today's fresh technologies make a gap between human cognition and its understanding.
At the political level, time-consuming decision-making processes are being compressed on a scale that prevents them from being rationally carried out, which endangers the balance of the global system. According to Kissinger, in the Artificial Age of Intelligence it will be essential to make fresh concepts of human cognition and relation between man and machine. Artificial intelligence is, according to the authors of the essay, a manifestation of an era of “dispersal” erstwhile deep concepts are hard to grasp. “The survey of the book has become an unconventional motion today,” says Kissinger. Hermeneutic cognition that the author “Leadership” and “On China” developed regarding the psyche of nations and leaders is losing ground for himself.
Nevertheless, to the pessimistic point of view, Kissinger, in the concluding chapter of the “Leadership”, points to the importance of humanistic and civic education and the spiritual subsoil for the formation of modern political leaders in meritocracy, which now replaced the erstwhile aristocracy. According to Kissinger, however, the perfect of humanist education dies in universities, which, in his opinion, threatens to educate competent public service officers. Universities are educated, according to him, narrowly specialized technocrats and ideologicalised activists. The study, according to Kissinger, loses its broader philosophical and historical perspective.
The failure of civic culture in turn, according to the Author of Leadership, causes a gap between the masses of society and the elite. The elites and the people are little and little assured and little fond of each other, which makes the strategy more and more oligarchy and the anti-oligarchy populist tendencies are increasing in society. The transition from written to visual culture is made, as Kissinger notes, via the net and fresh media, which importantly distorts the collective awareness of the society. The shortening of position and emotionalisation, characteristic of the online era, threatens, in his opinion, a deeper and holistic knowing of facts. Rational analysis yields, in Kissinger's opinion, in a fresh online era with suggestive emotional images. Mass media are besides exerting expanding conformation pressure, which cannot be prevented by decision-makers. However, the margin of permissible mistake in decision-making, as Kissinger points out, shrinks in the face of fresh challenges specified as artificial intelligence, cyberwar or fresh global tensions.
About America
It is not accidental that Richard Nixon was besides among the “Leadership” of planet leaders. Kissinger, never becoming a mentally American as no 1 understood the United States. It is impossible to realize what Yankees have about themselves and their country without reading Kissinger. Its characterization of the American national character can be successfully put alongside “About Democracy in America" (1835–1840) Alexis de Tocqueville, "America" (1986) Jean Baudrillard, or "Who Are We?" (2004) Samuel Huntington. The Lapidar conviction from Kissinger's "Diplomation" "The United States neither can retreat from the planet nor dominate it" best reflects the "tragism" of the global power. As in the case of China (in the ‘About China’), Kissinger penetrates profoundly into the psychopolitical conditions of US global projects, pointing to the intellectual and cultural determinants of their abroad policy. By combining the experience of a statesman with the sensitivity of a historian, it identifies the components of the national attitude of Yankees towards the outside planet and their perception of politics. For example, let's list 4 specified observed and described by Kissinger the characteristics of the American national character:
First,, reject the European (Richelieu) knowing of the state's rationale as a means of achieving rationally targeted abroad policy objectives and thus achieving rationally defined interests. The founding of the North American republic includes moralism, which from the position of another centres of force and the full global strategy is simply a disorganizing origin and a threat to the sustainability of dynamic balance. Let us add that in the English colonies in North America there were representatives of fundamentalist Christian sects who treated the moral commandments of this religion virtually and with full seriousness. While “security vents” have been developed in Orthodox and Catholic countries to reconcile Christian morality and anthropology with the requirements of functioning in the world, the doctrine of “pragmatism” was popular in the United States in the early 20th century, assuming the anticipation of “crumpling” material reality according to moral requirements. In the enlightened Enlightenment form, this fundamentalally understood Christianity moralism was entered into the US founding papers and expressed in their judicial case law. Kissinger's lesson, which is in fact a lesson of the "Phanish view", is besides crucial for Poland, which combines external policy with the North American republic with moral and ideological reasons. In Poland, this is not conditioned by Christian fundamentalism, but by “Latin” free-republicism and leads to subsequent defeats of the Polish strength centre in relations with the “realpolitik” German and Russian forces centres.
Secondly, reject the European knowing of policies as problem management, not solving them. The Americans, like Lucius Cyncinat, would like to “win the war”, immediately “to quit politics” and return to a quiet “harvest role”. After completing the mission to “solve the problem erstwhile and for all”, the American “comes home.” abroad policy is for an American to begin and end. In Europe, however, politics is understood as a process that never ends. Let us add that the above cultural code of the Yankees besides has its roots in Christianity: in the linear concept of time, reaching its end, after which eternal happiness is to prevail. In an enlightened form of the "eternal peace" idea, this Christian Chileism of Protestant fundamentalists inspired further Yankee visions of the "end of all wars" and of the planet "justice" – from the concept of the League of Nations to the concept of the "Great mediate East".
Kissinger, possibly unconsciously, is moving distant from Judeo-Christian historicalism towards a pagan planet image: the planet is without any "target" or "logics" of constant "becoming", beyond its borders there is no "better world" waiting for us, for it is the 1 in which we live – due to the fact that it is the only existing. Therefore, the planet cannot be "improved" but only poorly or well managed by its interests and common relations; good governance is specified that these relations are structurally stable, and so reasonably predictable.
Third, American political code is liberal code. The Yankees consider a good and just planet in which trade will replace war and law – strength. The U.S. presents itself as a planet Order champion governed by law. This passage goes through the full intellectual past of the United States, reaching a far more distant past than the emergence of the global Criminal Court, intended to mask the attacks on the thought of "humanitarian intervention" after the end of the Cold War, or the founding of the UN and the earlier League of Nations. Kissinger, meanwhile, understands politics through the prism of forces, which is highly "non-American".
The American code of knowing politics, as we mentioned, is simply a liberal code. Liberalism exposes to the leading position specified enlightened Christian ideas as freedom, individuality, equality, rationalism which in the doctrine of the Christian Churches of continental Europe have been "covered" by subversive philosophical and cultural formulas. Among the Protestant fundamentalists torn from the European civilization environment in English colonies in North America, however, these ideas were exposed to a prominent place, then reflected in the secular thought of North American Enlightenment and yet in Yankee liberalism.
Kissinger-European
Kissinger wrote for the Yankee political elite, but his concepts are not popular among her. The United States is now focusing on the surrounding and isolation of China, not the coupling of China by the global strategy which it is inactive leading. Washington treats Russia and another global players not as regional pillars of the planet order, but as rivals to oppress or destroy. Kissinger's concepts are not and will not be implemented in US abroad policy in the foreseeable future. In his intellectual, intellectual and conscious design, Kissinger was not an American, but a European. Despite his departure from Germany even erstwhile he was a boy and his judaic background, Kissinger was mentally always “German”. Therefore, its analysis is more popular than in the native US enjoys in continental Europe and China. Kissinger's temperament and mentality were purely ‘tellurocratic’.
In the feeding anti-European (and especially anti-Russian) opposition of Poland, Kissinger is seen alternatively critically – as insufficiently anti-Russian. The superiority of Brzeziński over Kissinger late saw the Polish Conservative Marek A. Cichocki, indicating as a origin supposed superiority of Brzeziński demoliberal ideology of his concept of politics towards Russia. specified an assessment by the Conservative would, of course, be absurd unless we see the fact that Poles share a demoliberal ideology with Americans – with the fact that Polish conservatives, alternatively of a liberal-democratic term, like "freedom-republican". However, the difference is only cosmetic, due to the fact that in both cases we are dealing with the binding of the sense of a grim demoliberous ideological superstition.
Ronald Lasecki
photo of wikipedia
Think Poland, No. 51-52 (17-24.12.2023)
