World Order

by Henry Kissinger

  First, the nature of the state itself—the basic formal unit of international life—has been subjected to a multitude of pressures: attacked and dismantled by design, in some regions corroded from neglect, often submerged by the sheer rush of events. Europe has set out to transcend the state and to craft a foreign policy based principally on soft power and humanitarian values. But it is doubtful that claims to legitimacy separated from any concept of strategy can sustain a world order. And Europe has not yet given itself attributes of statehood, tempting a vacuum of authority internally and an imbalance of power along its borders. Parts of the Middle East have dissolved into sectarian and ethnic components in conflict with each other; religious militias and the powers backing them violate borders and sovereignty at will. The challenge in Asia is the opposite of Europe’s. Westphalian balance-of-power principles prevail unrelated to an agreed concept of legitimacy.

  And in several parts of the world we have witnessed, since the end of the Cold War, the phenomenon of “failed states,” of “ungoverned spaces,” or of states that hardly merit the term, having no monopoly on the use of force or effective central authority. If the major powers come to practice foreign policies of manipulating a multiplicity of subsovereign units observing ambiguous and often violent rules of conduct, many based on extreme articulations of divergent cultural experiences, anarchy is certain.

  Second, the political and the economic organizations of the world are at variance with each other. The international economic system has become global, while the political structure of the world has remained based on the nation-state. The global economic impetus is on removing obstacles to the flow of goods and capital. The international political system is still largely based on contrasting ideas of world order and the reconciliation of concepts of national interest. Economic globalization, in its essence, ignores national frontiers. International policy emphasizes the importance of frontiers even as it seeks to reconcile conflicting national aims.

  This dynamic has produced decades of sustained economic growth punctuated by periodic financial crises of seemingly escalating intensity: in Latin America in the 1980s; in Asia in 1997; in Russia in 1998; in the United States in 2001 and then again starting in 2007; in Europe after 2010. The winners—those who can weather the storm within a reasonable period and go forward—have few reservations about the system. But the losers—such as those stuck in structural misdesigns, as has been the case with the European Union’s southern tier—seek their remedies by solutions that negate, or at least obstruct, the functioning of the global economic system.

  While each of those crises has had a different cause, their common feature has been profligate speculation and systemic underappreciation of risk. Financial instruments have been invented that obscure the nature of the relevant transactions. Lenders have found it difficult to estimate the extent of their commitments and borrowers, including major nations, to understand the implications of their indebtedness.

  The international order thus faces a paradox: its prosperity is dependent on the success of globalization, but the process produces a political reaction that often works counter to its aspirations. The economic managers of globalization have few occasions to engage with its political processes. The managers of the political processes have few incentives to risk their domestic support on anticipating economic or financial problems whose complexity eludes the understanding of all but experts.

  In these conditions, the challenge becomes governance itself. Governments are subjected to pressures seeking to tip the process of globalization in the direction of national advantage or mercantilism. In the West, the issues of globalization thus merge with the issues of the conduct of democratic foreign policy. Harmonizing political and economic international orders challenges vested views: the quest for world order because it requires an enlargement of the national framework; the disciplining of globalization because sustainable practices imply a modification of the conventional patterns.

  Third is the absence of an effective mechanism for the great powers to consult and possibly cooperate on the most consequential issues. This may seem an odd criticism in light of the plethora of multilateral forums that exist—more by far than at any other time in history. The UN Security Council—of compelling formal authority but deadlocked on the most important issues—is joined by regular summits for Atlantic leaders in NATO and the European Union, for Asia-Pacific leaders in APEC and the East Asia Summit, for developed countries in the G7 or G8, and for major economies in the G20. The United States is a key participant in all of these forums. Yet the nature and frequency of these meetings work against elaboration of long-range strategy. Discussions of schedules and negotiations over formal agendas arrogate the majority of preparation time; some forums effectively co-orbit on the calendars of leaders because of the difficulty of gathering principals in any one place on a regular basis. Participant heads of state, by the nature of their positions, focus on the public impact of their actions at the meeting; they are tempted to emphasize the tactical implications or the public relations aspect. This process permits little beyond designing a formal communiqué—at best, a discussion of pending tactical issues, and, at worst, a new form of summitry as “social media” event. A contemporary structure of international rules and norms, if it is to prove relevant, cannot merely be affirmed by joint declarations; it must be fostered as a matter of common conviction.

  Throughout, American leadership has been indispensable, even when it has been exercised ambivalently. It has sought a balance between stability and advocacy of universal principles not always reconcilable with principles of sovereign noninterference or other nations’ historical experience. The quest for that balance, between the uniqueness of the American experience and the idealistic confidence in its universality, between the poles of overconfidence and introspection, is inherently unending. What it does not permit is withdrawal.

  WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

  A reconstruction of the international system is the ultimate challenge to statesmanship in our time. The penalty for failing will be not so much a major war between states (though in some regions this is not foreclosed) as an evolution into spheres of influence identified with particular domestic structures and forms of governance—for example, the Westphalian model as against the radical Islamist version. At its edges each sphere would be tempted to test its strength against other entities of orders deemed illegitimate. They would be networked for instantaneous communication and impinging on one another constantly. In time the tensions of this process would degenerate into maneuvers for status or advantage on a continental scale or even worldwide. A struggle between regions could be even more debilitating than the struggle between nations has been.

  The contemporary quest for world order will require a coherent strategy to establish a concept of order within the various regions, and to relate these regional orders to one another. These goals are not necessarily identical or self-reconciling: the triumph of a radical movement might bring order to one region while setting the stage for turmoil in and with all others. The domination of a region by one country militarily, even if it brings the appearance of order, could produce a crisis for the rest of the world.

  A reassessment of the concept of balance of power is in order. In theory, the balance of power should be quite calculable; in practice, it has proved extremely difficult to harmonize a country’s calculations with those of other states and achieve a common recognition of limits. The conjectural element of foreign policy—the need to gear actions to an assessment that cannot be proved when it is made—is never more true than in a period of upheaval. Then, the old order is in flux while the shape of the replacement is highly uncertain. Everything depends, therefore, on some conception of the future. But varying internal structures can produce different assessments of the significance of existing trends and, more important, clashing criteria for resolving these differences. This is the dilemma of our time.

  A world order of states affirming individual dig
nity and participatory governance, and cooperating internationally in accordance with agreed-upon rules, can be our hope and should be our inspiration. But progress toward it will need to be sustained through a series of intermediary stages. At any given interval, we will usually be better served, as Edmund Burke once wrote, “to acquiesce in some qualified plan that does not come up to the full perfection of the abstract idea, than to push for the more perfect,” and risk crisis or disillusionment by insisting on the ultimate immediately. The United States needs a strategy and diplomacy that allow for the complexity of the journey—the loftiness of the goal, as well as the inherent incompleteness of the human endeavors through which it will be approached.

  To play a responsible role in the evolution of a twenty-first-century world order, the United States must be prepared to answer a number of questions for itself:

  What do we seek to prevent, no matter how it happens, and if necessary alone? The answer defines the minimum condition of the survival of the society.

  What do we seek to achieve, even if not supported by any multilateral effort? These goals define the minimum objectives of the national strategy.

  What do we seek to achieve, or prevent, only if supported by an alliance? This defines the outer limits of the country’s strategic aspirations as part of a global system.

  What should we not engage in, even if urged by a multilateral group or an alliance? This defines the limiting condition of the American participation in world order.

  Above all, what is the nature of the values that we seek to advance? What applications depend in part on circumstance?

  The same questions apply in principle to other societies.

  For the United States, the quest for world order functions on two levels: the celebration of universal principles needs to be paired with a recognition of the reality of other regions’ histories and cultures. Even as the lessons of challenging decades are examined, the affirmation of America’s exceptional nature must be sustained. History offers no respite to countries that set aside their commitments or sense of identity in favor of a seemingly less arduous course. America—as the modern world’s decisive articulation of the human quest for freedom, and an indispensable geopolitical force for the vindication of humane values—must retain its sense of direction.

  A purposeful American role will be philosophically and geopolitically imperative for the challenges of our period. Yet world order cannot be achieved by any one country acting alone. To achieve a genuine world order, its components, while maintaining their own values, need to acquire a second culture that is global, structural, and juridical—a concept of order that transcends the perspective and ideals of any one region or nation. At this moment in history, this would be a modernization of the Westphalian system informed by contemporary realities.

  Is it possible to translate divergent cultures into a common system? The Westphalian system was drafted by some two hundred delegates, none of whom has entered the annals of history as a major figure, who met in two provincial German towns forty miles apart (a significant distance in the seventeenth century) in two separate groups. They overcame their obstacles because they shared the devastating experience of the Thirty Years’ War, and they were determined to prevent its recurrence. Our time, facing even graver prospects, needs to act on its necessities before it is engulfed by them.

  Cryptic fragments from remote antiquity reveal a view of the human condition as irremediably marked by change and strife. “World-order” was fire-like, “kindling in measure and going out in measure,” with war “the Father and King of all” creating change in the world. But “the unity of things lies beneath the surface; it depends upon a balanced reaction between opposites.” The goal of our era must be to achieve that equilibrium while restraining the dogs of war. And we have to do so among the rushing stream of history. The well-known metaphor for this is in the fragment conveying that “one cannot step twice in the same river.” History may be thought of as a river, but its waters will be ever changing.

  Long ago, in youth, I was brash enough to think myself able to pronounce on “The Meaning of History.” I now know that history’s meaning is a matter to be discovered, not declared. It is a question we must attempt to answer as best we can in recognition that it will remain open to debate; that each generation will be judged by whether the greatest, most consequential issues of the human condition have been faced, and that decisions to meet these challenges must be taken by statesmen before it is possible to know what the outcome may be.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION: THE QUESTION OF WORLD ORDER

  “You are 20 states”: Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978), as quoted in Antony Black, The History of Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 207.

  CHAPTER 1: EUROPE: THE PLURALISTIC INTERNATIONAL ORDER

  The idea of Europe loomed: Kevin Wilson and Jan van der Dussen, The History of the Idea of Europe (London: Routledge, 1993).

  In that worldview Christendom: Frederick B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), 275–80.

  Aspirations to unity were briefly realized: Heinrich Fichtenau, The Carolingian Empire: The Age of Charlemagne, trans. Peter Munz (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 60.

  Charles was hailed: Hugh Thomas, The Golden Age: The Spanish Empire of Charles V (London: Allen Lane, 2010), 23.

  In the tradition of Charlemagne: James Reston Jr., Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520–1536 (New York: Penguin Press, 2009), 40, 294–95.

  The French King repudiated: See Chapter 3.

  The universality of the Church Charles sought: See Edgar Sanderson, J. P. Lamberton, and John McGovern, Six Thousand Years of History, vol. 7, Famous Foreign Statesmen (Philadelphia: E. R. DuMont, 1900), 246–50; Reston, Defenders of the Faith, 384–89. To a later Europe fractious and skeptical of universalistic claims, Charles’s rule appeared less like a near deliverance into desired unity than an overbearing threat. As the Scottish philosopher David Hume, a product of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, would later write, “Mankind were anew alarmed by the danger of universal monarchy, from the union of so many kingdoms and principalities in the person of the Emperor Charles.” David Hume, “On the Balance of Power,” in Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (1742), 2.7.13.

  A map depicting the universe: See Jerry Brotton, A History of the World in Twelve Maps (London: Penguin Books, 2013), 82–113 (discussion of the Hereford Mappa Mundi, ca. 1300); 4 Ezra 6:42; Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, trans. Allen Mandelbaum (London: Bantam, 1982), 342; and Osip Mandelstam, “Conversation About Dante,” in The Poet’s Dante, ed. Peter S. Hawkins and Rachel Jacoff (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 67.

  “red eminence”: Richelieu himself had a “grey eminence,” his confidential advisor and agent François Leclerc du Tremblay, whose robes as Père Joseph of the Capuchin order led him to be called Richelieu’s éminence grise, a label ever thereafter applied to shadowy figures of influence in the history of diplomacy. Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941).

  Machiavelli’s treatises on statesmanship: See, for example, Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War (1521), Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy (1531), The Prince (1532).

  To outraged complaints: Joseph Strayer, Hans Gatzke, and E. Harris Harbison, The Mainstream of Civilization Since 1500 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 420.

  The fragmentation of Central Europe: Richelieu, “Advis donné au roy sur le sujet de la bataille de Nordlingen,” in The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History, ed. and trans. Tryntje Helfferich (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2009), 151.

  The 235 official envoys: Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 673.

  Most representatives had come with eminently practica
l instructions: Ibid., 676.

  Both the main multilateral treaties: Instrumentum pacis Osnabrugensis (1648) and Instrumentum pacis Monsteriensis (1648), in Helfferich, Thirty Years War, 255, 271.

  Paradoxically, this general exhaustion and cynicism: Wilson, Thirty Years War, 672.

  novel clauses: These formal provisions of tolerance were extended only to the three recognized Christian confessions: Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.

  “We have no eternal allies”: Palmerston, Speech to the House of Commons, March 1, 1848. This spirit was also expressed by Prince William III of Orange, who fought against French hegemony for a generation (first as Dutch stadtholder and then as King of England, Ireland, and Scotland), when he confided to an aide that, had he lived in the 1550s, when the Habsburgs were on the verge of becoming dominant, he would have been “as much a Frenchman as he was now a Spaniard” (Habsburg)—and later by Winston Churchill, replying in the 1930s to the charge that he was anti-German: “If the circumstances were reversed, we could equally be pro-German and anti-French.”

  “When people ask me”: Palmerston to Clarendon, July 20, 1856, quoted in Harold Temperley and Lillian M. Penson, Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt (1792) to Salisbury (1902) (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1938), 88.

  In his Leviathan: The experience that brought Hobbes to write Leviathan was principally that of the English Civil Wars, whose impact on England, though less physically devastating than that of the Thirty Years’ War on the Continent, was still very great.

  “Concerning the offices of one sovereign to another”: Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), 233.

  There were in fact two balances of power: It is important to keep in mind that only one major power existed in Central Europe at the time: Austria and its dominions. Prussia was still a secondary state at the eastern fringes of Germany. Germany was a geographic concept, not a state. Dozens of small, some minuscule, states made up a mosaic of governance.