Expert blog: Henry Kissinger - revered statesman or diplomatic rogue?

Expert blog: Henry Kissinger - revered statesman or diplomatic rogue?

I will start this piece with some honesty. My first reaction when I learned of Henry Kissinger’s death this week at the age of 100 was surprise that he was still alive. Or at least had been until now. The last time I remember him being in the public spotlight was in 2012 when he kept his promise to attend a Greuther Fürth football game if they gained promotion to the German Bundesliga.

Kissinger was born in Fürth, Bavaria, in 1923, and this was the team he supported all his life despite leaving for the United States in 1938 as the Nazi persecution of Jews was scaled up.

Kissinger is one of the most interesting characters in US diplomatic history. Despite most of his public life being in the service of the Republican administrations of Richard Nixon (1969 – 1974) and Gerald Ford (1974 – 1977) he was a confidante of political leaders from across the political divide. This was not necessarily because they liked him though but because he was useful on account of his experience and influence over US foreign policy during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Of all of Kissinger’s work, the most significant, and indeed lasting of his enterprises, was his orchestration of Nixon's approach to China during the early 1970s. Washington and Beijing had no formal diplomatic relationship after the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The US instead recognised the Republic of China government that had fled to Taiwan as the government of all of China. Kissinger’s preliminary meetings with Chinese officials paved the way for Nixon to visit China in 1972 and for formal relations to be eventually confirmed at New Year 1978-79. The approach to China is recognised for its departure from ideologically-led politics and a focus on interest, opportunity and commerce: realpolitik. It is one of the key diplomatic acts at the start of the neoliberal age and Kissinger is still regarded as a persona non grata by Taiwan for his role in their further diplomatic marginalisation.

Kissinger’s roles in Washington as National Security Advisor (1969 – 1975) and then Secretary of State (1973 – 1977) were at a time of great tension in East Asia due to US involvement in the Vietnam War (1965 - 1973), which came under heavy global criticism notably from the peace movement led by John Lennon, Yoko Ono and other globally prominent individuals. Most of the focus of the Pentagon Papers that were leaked in 1971 focused on the decision-making of the previous administration of Lyndon Johnson (1963 – 1969) on the conflict in Indochina. Notably, that they knew that the war was unwinnable by 1968 but had still pumped military resources and personnel into the effort at the cost of tens of thousands of American lives and had lied to Congress in the process. Nixon and Kissinger thus had to deal with the withdrawal of US forces from the region in 1973, the embarrassment of the Vietcong victory in 1975 (during Gerald Ford’s presidency) and the well-found allegations of widespread war crimes and indiscriminate attacks on peasant villages using napalm as an unjustifiable US military strategy. Indeed, AP journalist Nick Ut’s 1972 photograph ‘napalm girl’ remains probably the most well-known piece of conflict journalism in history and profoundly influenced what policies the US public would then accept in their name and their relationship with the US military as an emblem of national prestige.

Kissinger was a divisive character who courted controversy throughout his career. Indeed, there are some in Washington who consider him an unprofessional narcissist who over-extended his portfolio and made the Cold War about himself rather than the interests of his adopted country. In diplomacy theory, a diplomatic should have no individual identity. Their role is to state and sometimes negotiate on behalf of the international actor that they represent. They are allowed no discretion of their own and should work strictly within the limitations of the dossier provided regardless of whether they personally agree or disagree with it. Kissinger, however, took his own initiative on several occasions and irked those around him for doing so. In his discussions with Chinese leaders, for example, he articulated a US position of flexibility on Taiwan when the policy was one of firm commitment to the defence of the island from Chinese attack. This rogue behaviour was an incredible and unnecessary risk to take as it could have been interpreted in Beijing that the US would not retaliate if China tried to take Taiwan by force, only for the US to respond with violence, unaware of what Kissinger had said.

Kissinger first came to political prominence in 1957 when he published the book Nuclear War and Foreign Policy. In it he argued that small-scale nuclear war using “battlefield” weapons might prove successful for the US. This was a time of McCarthyism and the Red Scare and the book should be viewed in the context of those fearful years. There is of course an obvious counter-narrative to Kissinger’s position. That no one can ‘win’ a nuclear war of any kind. One might be able to militarily defeat an opponent but the level of death, destruction and environmental catastrophe in doing so would leave the world a desolate place – structurally and morally. Moreover, any ‘victory’ in nuclear war would likely tarnish the leader who pressed the button so completely as to make it pointless to fight it in the first place. Nevertheless, Kissinger’s contribution changed the debate from nuclear weapons as deterrence to nuclear weapons and their practical use in military strategy. No one in the field of international relations could ignore this intervention and everyone knew who Kissinger was after that. But perhaps that was his intention.

Dr Colin Alexander is an expert in political communications in the School of Arts and Humanities