World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

Following two chapters on Asia, Kissinger moves on to analyze the United States, its role in the world, its self-perception, and its foreign policy styles up until World War II. Chapter 7 comprises the following categories: “America on the World Stage,” “Theodore Roosevelt: America as a World Power,” “Woodrow Wilson: America as the World’s Conscience,” and “Franklin Roosevelt and the New World Order.”

One key aspect of the American foreign policy is its complicated role:

[I]t expanded across a continent in the name of Manifest Destiny while abjuring any imperial designs; exerted a decisive influence on momentous events while disclaiming any motivation of national interest; and became a superpower while disavowing any intention to conduct power politics. America’s foreign policy has reflected the conviction that its domestic principles were self-evidently universal and their application at all times salutary; that the real challenge of American engagement abroad was not foreign policy in the traditional sense but a project of spreading values that it believed all other peoples aspired to replicate (234).

This messianic aspect of American foreign policy combined with its conviction in one’s own moral superiority is important to understanding American actions since the country’s inception. These aspects also stand in contrast to Europe, in which the questions of morality had traditionally been kept out of foreign policy and international relations. Even the 19th-century French noble Alexis de Tocqueville, who examined the American way of life, emphasized a number of so-called points of departure from the European ways.

This American conviction that its values are universal and exportable “introduced a challenging element into the international system because it implies that governments not practicing them are less than fully legitimate” (235-236). This type of thinking introduces an adversarial element to international relations, according to Kissinger.

As with other regions, Kissinger examines American history from the time of the country’s revolutionary birth. He also sees direct links between the specifics of American geography—being separated by two oceans—and the continent’s rich resources as definitive of the American approach to diplomatic relations. Kissinger calls the early American perception of foreign policy “a series of episodic challenges” (237) rather than a coherent system. Even after the United States eventually joined the ranks of the great powers, this perception did not change. Indeed, this change in status occurred through amassing land through its westward expansion and growing domestic power, which was unique.

Three specific presidents left a significant impact on shaping American foreign policy styles after it became a great power: Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). Teddy Roosevelt perceived America as a world power. Wilson was an idealistic peacemaker. FDR, a cautious realist, helped propel the United States to the superpower status that the country attained after World War II.

Teddy Roosevelt believed that America was exceptional. His perception of foreign policy was to approach global power from the standpoint of national interest. Such perceptions pushed America out of isolation and into participating in the global order. The Panama Canal allowed the US to move its ships between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Roosevelt’s brokerage of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) emphasized this new international role for America. This experience also made Roosevelt understand the need for an Asian equilibrium without allowing victorious Japan to get too strong.

In contrast to Teddy Roosevelt and his practical concerns, Kissinger calls Woodrow Wilson “the world’s conscience” (255). When he became President, Wilson wanted neutrality in international affairs. The United States finally entered World War I in 1917 “under the banner of moral universality not seen in Europe since the religious wars three centuries before” (256). Wilson believed that it was, in part, the pursuit of a power balance that led to this global war.

After the war, Wilson promoted the principle of self-determination because it is through self-government that people could “express their underlying will toward international harmony” (260). One important development after 1918 was the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations, established to foster international cooperation. This organization was meant to be founded on moral principles, such as denouncing military aggression as such, rather than targeting specific threats. The League of Nations, according to Wilson, should focus on collective security, rather than alliances, “a legal construct addressed to no specific contingency” (263).

Finally, Kissinger discusses the challenges that the global order faced around the time of World War II. He believes that FDR surpassed Wilson in “spelling out his ideas of the foundation of international peace” (269). Kissinger describes FDR as a cautious and careful diplomat, particularly during his interactions with the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. For example, during the 1943 Tehran Conference, FDR sought to avoid making it seem like the Anglo-Saxon leaders, Britain and the US, “were ganging up against Stalin” (271).

A key challenge for these Allied conferences was the concept of postwar peace, including its principles and the relationship with the Soviet Union. The US only recognized that country in 1933 due to fears of its Communist ideology. Stalin believed that capitalism led to wars, that Hitler was the result of the capitalist system, and that the end of World War II was merely an armistice. For this reason, the Soviet Union—devastated by 27 million deaths and responsible for 80% of Nazi German war losses—pushed its borders as far west as possible after the war in pursuit of security. It was President Harry Truman, not FDR, who solidified the policy of dealing with the Soviet Union at this time.