At 100, Kissinger sees the rhyming nature of history

Paradoxically, Henry Kissinger is one of the most contentious, yet respected, foreign policy and strategic thinkers of his generation.

He has been at the centre of many of the Cold War’s transformational moments, from the uneasy peace between the United States and Vietnam to the opening of Mao’s China and detente, Kissinger drew upon his family’s history during the Second World War and an unquestioning belief in the United States as a global force for good to shape the Cold War and by extension, the world we now find ourselves facing.

This basis for understanding the world, particularly through the lens of great power competition (GPC) has left the famed strategist concerned about the mounting economic, political, and strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, which is shaping up to be the defining point of the 21st century.

Speaking to The Economist, Dr Kissinger unpacked the opportunity cost that faces the world in preparing for an potential conflict between the United States and China and the broader geopolitical realignment as the world shifts away from the post-Second World War order established and maintained by the United States towards an increasingly competitive, multipolar world.

Forget the 1930s, things are more like the 1900s

While many a strategic policy analyst, historian, and political leader have actively drawn comparisons between the world we face today and the 1930s in the prelude to the Second World War, particularly as it relates to Germany and Japan’s pre-war military build-up and active attempts to engage in territorial expansion, for Kissinger, there is a different parallel: the years immediately preceding the First World War.

“Now the situation is that China is developing genuine [strategic] capabilities, plus an economy that is competitive, to some extent, with the United States. So, we’re in the classic pre-World War One situation where neither side has much margin of political concession and in which any disturbance of the equilibrium can lead to catastrophic consequences. In that situation [it] gets inherently worse on a technological side,” Dr Kissinger explained.

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While there are arguably a number of similarities between the two periods in the lead up to the First and Second World Wars, respectively, the most notable similarity between today and the lead up to the First World War is the decades of peace that preceded the outbreak of conflict in 1914 and the unforeseen rise of a true economic, political, and strategic power that could rival the British Empire.

The rise of Imperial Germany as a direct economic, political, and strategic competitor to the British Empire has particular echoes for the period of Great Power Competition, which now characterises the Indo-Pacific in particular. Since the opening of China, ironically by Kissinger during his time as Secretary of State to Richard Nixon, the Middle Kingdom has undergone undoubtedly the greatest economic transformation in human history lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty, largely thanks to the investment and demands by the US-led liberal democratic, capitalist world.

Now, however, Beijing’s ambitions and designs for the Indo-Pacific draw on historic claims to parts of the South China Sea, Taiwan, central Asian plateaus and even the Siberian expanses under the Mandate of Heaven, as the nation seeks to rebuild the glory of its imperial past, bringing it into conflict with the post-Second World War order.

Dr Kissinger details this, stating, “We are on the path to great power confrontation. And what makes it more worrisome to me is that both sides have convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger. And it is a strategic danger in a world in which the decisions of each can determine the likelihood of conflict.

“And in such a situation it is natural to attempt to be preeminent, technologically and materially. So a situation can arise in which an issue escalates into a confrontation about the overall relationship. That is the biggest problem at the moment. And, when you have an issue like Taiwan, in which concessions become very difficult because it involves fundamental principles, that becomes even more dangerous,” Dr Kissinger explained.

The Cold War provides some lessons

The analogies to the US-China competition as a form of Cold War 2.0 equally figure in Dr Kissinger’s broader assessment of the new era of multipolarity, particularly as it relates to nuclear armed states, who for all intents and purposes tend to set the agenda, with Dr Kissinger stating, “The Cold War was a strategic situation in which we started in an inherently stronger position. But the word ‘stronger’ needs understanding, because the dilemma was — and remains — that countries like Vietnam could defeat a superpower that had nuclear superiority, but did not wish to use it. And that imbalance applied also to NATO [strategy], which perceived Russian conventional superiority, and which in turn enabled Russia to exert a dominant influence.”

Dr Kissinger added, “When we’re in an adversarial world with mutually assured destruction, you owe it morally to your society to avoid it. [The situation] never got to it during the Cold War period. But it is a hell of a responsibility to kill 110 million people in a week, which was the estimate for such a war. And in any conduct of crises, you disarm yourself totally. So, you have to operate by escalation, but with the moral recourse to avoid the slide to a crisis, which is my fear in Taiwan today.”

While Beijing has effectively ruled out a first strike nuclear policy, its ambitions towards Taiwan and the subsequent arms build- up, both in conventional and strategic terms, seems to establish that their ambitions go beyond the island democracy, with broader designs for the Indo-Pacific as it seeks to reestablish itself as the Middle Kingdom, through the hybrid combination of diplomatic, economic, and military mechanisms including the Belt and Road Initiative and the BRICS organisations.

These ambitions and the broader establishment of multilateral organisations equally flies in the face of Kissinger’s hopes for Beijing’s opening up in the early 1970s, with him explaining, “Well, what we were trying to do is to introduce China into certain systems and, based on our experience, determine how system-abiding China would become. It’s interesting that Mao was certainly the most ideological leader that I encountered. But he was also ruthless in applying stabilising principles when they benefited China.

“And so, the Soviet Union and China found themselves in a conflict in Manchuria. And one of my first experiences of that conflict was a briefing from a rand analyst, who said that most of the military actions were initiated by Russia. So the problem for us became, if there’s a conflict between two countries, and with one of which we have no contact whatsoever, what do you do?”

While many have heard the old argument that the richer China became, the more liberal they would become, it appears as though the Chinese people and government both missed the memo, highlighting the limitations of optimistic or idealistic foreign policymaking, something Kissinger seems to acknowledge, albeit tacitly.

“The difference was that China in the interval has become a strategic force, and acquired technological capabilities that make it a genuine rival. When we opened to China, the Chinese position was parallel to Europe, in that the threat of conventional Soviet forces was becoming their principal strategic challenge ... Anyone who has talked to Mao could have no debate about his ideological proclivities. But when you read these conversations — I had five of them with Mao — [they evince a] strategic objective.”

Going further, Kissinger identified the subtle, traditionally subversive approach embraced by revolutionary governments like the Soviet Union and Communist China, stating, “That strategic aspect was expressed by Deng, who was a great leader conducting moderate policies, even by Western standards. He put forward two sets of principles. I don’t have the exact text in my mind. They were basically to ‘know your objectives, but [pursue] them quietly, without assertiveness’. And there was a sub coda attached to them, which said, ‘the enemy is at the gate, and we must be very prudent in our conduct’. That is changing through technology. What we’re debating endlessly in the West is whether the existing leadership is inherently more radical. My [answer] to that is, I don’t know. But it’s our duty to test it. In other words, it is our duty to maintain the equilibrium but also to [provide] for a peaceful world.”

Final thoughts

In the second part of this short series, we will take a closer look at Dr Kissinger’s thoughts on China’s own self-image and the role it sees for itself in the new world order, beyond the end of the Pax Americana and the role of Taiwan in the future relationship between the United States, China, and the broader world.

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