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

Chapter 8 reviews American foreign policy after its rise to superpower status in the second part of the 20th century and beyond. The author covers the American foreign-policy styles, perceptions, and challenges in the age of the global Cold War confrontation. The subject areas include “The Beginning of the Cold War,” “Strategies of a Cold War Order,” “The Korean War,” Vietnam and the Breakdown of the National Consensus,” “Richard Nixon and International Order,” “The Beginning of Renewal,” “Ronald Raegan and the End of the Cold War,” “The Afghanistan and Iraq Wars,” and “The Purpose and the Possible.”

First, Kissinger considers the US an “ambivalent superpower” wielding significant military and international capabilities, while considering itself exceptional and different—indeed, superior—to other historic counterparts because of its moral qualities:

That sense of responsibility for world order and of the indispensability of American power, buttressed by a consensus that based the moral universalism of the leaders on the American people’s dedication to freedom and democracy, led to the extraordinary achievements of the Cold War period and beyond (276).

America’s self-confidence was buttressed by the fact that compared to the devastation caused in Europe, the Soviet Union, and Asia, it was largely undamaged by World War II. At that time, its GNP was 60% of the world’s GNP. At the same time, the US met challenges to its global vision in the form of emergent post-colonial states with different cultures as well as the growing complexity of Communist states. Similarly, American wars in this period began with “near-universal public support which then turned into public discord—often on the brink of violence” (279).

Kissinger describes the creation of the global order after World War II such as the competing visions of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. In contrast to the traditional Westphalian system in Europe, Stalin preferred for the victors to impose their own systems in the areas they controlled. By the late 1940s, for example, the Americans broke the initial quadripartite division of Berlin, to which Stalin responded with a blockade. These geopolitical disagreements were complicated further by the invention of nuclear weapons and the prospect of confrontation. Nonetheless, President Truman decided to commit the US to shape the international order on a permanent basis.

In general, Truman’s vision took share through consolidating the American influence in Western Europe and ultimately creating a bipolar world with two spheres of influence that confronted each other. Ideologically, the Truman Doctrine was to counter Communism globally—primarily focusing on the USSR—and exploited the “traditional and instinctively Russian sense of insecurity” (284). A practical way in which this occurred was by establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. The Soviet Union responded to this development with the establishment of the Warsaw Pact in 1955.

One byproduct of American foreign policy was the wars in which it engaged at this time. At best, they ended inconclusively like the Korean War (1950-1953). At worst, they were disastrous and caused public unrest domestically, like the Vietnam War (1955-1975). Kissinger outlines the international complexities of each conflict, for example, the relationship between the USSR and China, which supported the North Korean side to different extents. China had important strategic considerations because it had been invaded through the Korean corridor many times. In contrast, the American side was “fighting for a principle, defeating aggression” (290). Ultimately, Truman saw the USSR as a greater threat in need of containment, and the Soviet Union primarily operated in Europe, not Asia, at this time.

Whereas the Korean War was about targeting the wrong opponent, the Vietnam War demonstrated “the breakdown of the national consensus” (295) and exacerbated domestic problems in the United States. Kissinger calls the domestic debate “one of the most scarring in American history” (299). Multiple American administrations took part in this prolonged conflict. For example, Truman used civilian advisors in South Vietnam in 1951. Eisenhower relied on their military counterparts in 1954. The next two administrations, Kennedy and Johnson, effectively authorized combat in the 1960s. Yet containment that worked in Europe was much less useful in Asia. By the late 1960s, key American war architects called for withdrawal. Ground combat stopped in 1971. North Vietnam subsequently took South Vietnam, whereas Cambodia and Laos had successful Communist insurgent movements. Khmer Rouge operated with brutality in Cambodia. Ultimately, “America had lost its first war and also the thread to its concept of world order” (302).

At the same time, Nixon succeeded in establishing rapprochement with China by exploiting the Sino-Soviet split because an “improved relationship with China would gradually isolate the Soviet Union or impel it to seek better relations with the United States” (306). Kissinger highlights his secret trip to China in 1971 that aided this matter. At the same time, Nixon was able to reach a détente with the USSR in 1972. Whereas the international situation was more relaxed, the President had to face domestic tensions and criticism from the conservatives about “the Communist challenge to Western civilization” (307).

When it comes to the next two administrations, Ford’s goal was to connect power and principle in foreign policy, for example, the first agreement between Israel and an Arab state, Egypt. Jimmy Carter faced “the impact of American defeat in Indochina” as they translated into “challenges inconceivable while America still had the aura of invincibility” (309). Nonetheless, Carter still contributed to the Middle Eastern peace process.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was able to blend legitimacy and power in foreign policy. He was also ideological—convinced about American superiority and perceiving Soviet weakness as the USSR’s economy stagnated. At the same time, Reagan’s harsh rhetoric, such as his calling the USSR an “Evil Empire” in 1983 came in contrast to pushing his “vision of reconciliation with the Soviet Union beyond what Nixon would have ever been willing to articulate” (312). Reagan also had the luck of dealing with a young Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his domestic agenda that “unleashed forces too disorganized for genuine reform and too demoralized to continue totalitarian leadership” (313).

The Americans perceived the Soviet Union as “the principal obstacle to a peaceful world” (314). However, after the USSR’s collapse in 1991, it became apparent that not only was the world not any more peaceful but that there was a need for a new global order. America’s victory in the 1991 Gulf War during George H.W. Bush’s presidency let the world know how the only remaining superpower would redefine its role. However, the 1990s administrations, such as that of Bill Clinton, had to face new challenges like the rise of jihadist insurgency, which “assaulted Western values and institutions” (316). For jihadist militants, “[t]he Westphalian concept of the state and international law, because it was based on rules not explicitly prescribed in the Quran, was an abomination to this movement” (316).

The wars in Iraq (2003-2011) and Afghanistan (2001-2021) created challenges on par with the “lessons of Vietnam” (316). These challenges were about establishing an “international order when the principal adversaries are non-state organizations that defend no specific territory and reject established principles of legitimacy” (317). George W. Bush ordered an invasion of Afghanistan justifying it by the fact that the Taliban harbored the terrorist organization al-Qaeda responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks. Americans invaded Iraq on the pretext of the country’s vulnerability to terrorists that were claimed to be there, and Saddam Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction, which was proven false later. This invasion occurred within the framework of Bush’s global war on terror. The subsequent challenges in Iraq involved fighting insurgency. In Afghanistan, this challenge was compounded with broad nation-building ideas:

The central premise of the American and allied effort became ‘rebuilding Afghanistan’ by means of a democratic, pluralistic, transparent Afghan government whose writ ran across the entire country and an Afghan national army capable of assuming responsibility for security on a national basis. With a striking idealism, these efforts were imagined to be comparable to the construction of democracy in Germany and Japan after World War II. No institutions in the history of Afghanistan or of any part of it provided a precedent for such a broad-based effort (318).

The one American success in Afghanistan was the elimination of Osama bin Laden responsible for the terrorist attack on the United States. This capture sent “a powerful message about the country’s global reach and determination to avenge atrocities” (320). Overall, Kissinger considers Afghanistan “a test case of whether a regional order can be distilled from divergent security interests and historical perspectives” (321). The war in Iraq, however, according to Kissinger had “a Sisyphean quality” (325).