Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Henry Kissinger
Reviewed 16-01-2015 by K.
Wimberger
General Information
Table of Contents
Structured into 11 chapters
Critique
Critique that no effort is made to talk about other concepts of international order,
which do not have the nation state as its smallest unit in the center of
perspective, but e.g. a district [compare to Leopold Kohrs The Breakdown of
Nations and the documentary The Economics of Happiness > the origins of all
misery are to be found in excess of size]
Critique of the author for shedding a all too positive light onto American foreign
policy and portraying at times a neo-crusader-like picture of American values
converting the barbarian world Kissinger does not spend even one thought to
the lost respect in regard to American values in Europe or China. A nation that
shows a wrecked health system, poor and antiquated infrastructure as its main
achievements lost credibility. A successful interior policy comes first. A successful
foreign policy second.
Critique of the author for not having understood to what extent the Chinese
government already wields control of the internet; the cyberspace will is a model
for the Chinese government on how to deal with the international community in
the real world: authoritarian, non-inclusive decision making will be the norm
Critique of the author (but also understanding) of not openly discussing the
threats of Chinas rise and not making clear analogies in Western appeasement
politics with the current situation [compare Micheal Ledeen article]
Credits
Credits to the author for categorizing international order and writing about
international order in a historical context which reveals some insights that have not
been obvious to the general audience
Credits to the author for explaining the original doctrine and fundamentalist currents
of Islam: Islam was at once a religion, a multiethnic superstate, and a new world
order. The areas Islam had conquered or where it held sway over tribute-paying nonMuslims were conceived as a single political unit: dar al-Islam, the House of Islam,
or the realm of peace. It would be governed by the caliphate, an institution defined by
rightful succession to the earthly political authority that the Prophet had exercised.
The lands beyond were dar al-harb, the realm of war; Islams mission was to
incorporate these regions into its own world order and thereby bring universal peace:
Credits to the author for explaining that Central Europe stayed divided for hundreds
of years because of French foreign policy
Credits to the author for explaining Russia and thus making some conclusions
possible in regard to China since I did not understand Russia very much, I always
felt that there was a missing link in understanding China. I had a few AHA
experiences when reading about Russian history, because China just carbon copied
much of Russian policies, which Russia in turns adapted from European countries.
Credits to the author for dissecting the risks and chances of new technologies, in
particular the requirement to adapt our educational institutions to enable people to
deal with daily floods of information without being drowned into an abyss empty of
knowledge and wisdom.
Constructivism: ideas matter for ultimate success Anarchy is what states make
of it > balance of power
Idealism: e.g. Wilsonian Idealism with League of Nations
Kissinger takes no clear stance. He surely is a realist (10/10), referring much to
T. Roosevelt, but also believes in the construction (6/10) of a better world with
some American puritan fervor, and he holds Wilsonian Idealism (3/10) though
failed in great esteem.
a. Europe
China had its Emperor; Islam had its Caliphthe recognized leader of the
lands of Islam. Europe had the Holy Roman Emperor. But the Holy Roman
Emperor operated from a much weaker base than his confreres in other
civilizations. He had no imperial bureaucracy at his disposal. His authority
depended on his strength in the regions he governed in his dynastic
capacity, essentially his family holdings. His position was not formally
hereditary and depended on election by a franchise of seven, later nine,
princes; these elections were generally decided by a mixture of political
maneuvering, assessments of religious piety, and vast financial payoffs. The
Emperor theoretically owed his authority to his investiture by the Pope, but
political and logistical considerations often excluded it, leaving him to rule
for years as Emperor-Elect. Religion and politics never merged into a
single construct, leading to Voltaires truthful jest that the Holy Roman
Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
With the end of Roman rule, pluralism became the defining characteristic of
the European order. [] Yet although it was comprehensible as a single
civilization, Europe never had a single governance, or a united, fixed
identity. [] For more than a thousand years, in the mainstream of modern
European statecraft order has derived from equilibrium, and identity from
resistance to universal rule > > Westphalian Peace and Balance of Power
As Charlemagnes empire had fractured in the ninth century into what would become the modern nations of France and Germany, Slavic tribes more than a thousand
miles to their east had coalesced in a confederation based around the city of Kiev.
This land of the Rus stood at the fraught intersections of civilizations and trade routes. With Vikings to its north, the expanding Arab empire to its south, and raiding
Turkic tribes to its east, Russia was permanently in the grip of conflating temptations and fears. Too far to the east to have experienced the Roman Empire (though
czars claimed the Caesars as their political and etymological forebears), Christian but looking to the Orthodox Church in Constantinople rather than Rome for
spiritual authority, Russia was close enough to Europe to share a common cultural vocabulary yet perpetually out of phase with the Continents historical trends.
Russia a uniquely Eurasian power, sprawling across two continents but never entirely at home in either.
Two and a half centuries of Mongol suzerainty (12371480) and the subsequent struggle to restore a coherent state based around the Duchy of Moscow imposed on
Russia an eastward orientation just as Western Europe was charting the new technological and intellectual vistas that would create the modern era.
As the Protestant Reformation impelled political and religious diversity in Europe, Russia translated the fall of its own religious lodestar, Constantinople and the
Eastern Roman Empire, to Muslim invaders in 1453 into an almost mystical conviction that Russias Czar was now (as the monk Filofei wrote to Ivan III around 1500)
the sole Emperor of all the Christians in the whole universe, with a messianic calling to regain the fallen Byzantine capital for Christendom.
Russia affirmed its tie to Western culture buteven as it grew exponentially in sizecame to see itself as a beleaguered outpost of civilization for which security
could be found only through exerting its absolute will over its neighbors.
With no natural borders save the Arctic and Pacific oceans, Russia was in a position to gratify this impulse for several centuriesmarching alternately into Central
Asia, then the Caucasus, then the Balkans, then Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Sea, to the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese and Japanese frontiers (and for
a time during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries across the Pacific into Alaskan and Californian settlements). It expanded each year by an amount larger than
the entire territory of many European states (on average, 100,000 square kilometers annually from 1552 to 1917).
Thus the world-conquering imperialism remained paired with a paradoxical sense of vulnerabilityas if marching halfway across the world had generated more
potential foes than additional security. From that perspective, the Czars empire can be said to have expanded because it proved easier to keep going than to stop.
In this context, a distinctive Russian concept of political legitimacy took hold. While Renaissance Europe rediscovered its classical humanist past and refined new
concepts of individualism and freedom, Russia sought its resurgence in its undiluted faith and in the coherence of a single, divinely sanctioned authority
overpowering all divisionsthe Czar as the living icon of God, whose commands were irresistible and inherently just. A common Christian faith and a shared elite
language (French) underscored a commonality of perspective with the West. Yet early European visitors to czarist Russia found themselves in a land of almost surreal
extremes and thought they saw, beneath the veneer of a modern Western monarchy, a despotism modeled on Mongol and Tartar practicesEuropean discipline
supporting the tyranny of Asia, in the uncharitable phrase of the Marquis de Custine.
Thus what in the West was regarded as arbitrary authoritarianism was presented in Russia as an elemental necessity, the precondition for functioning governance.
The Czar, like the Chinese Emperor, was an absolute ruler endowed by tradition with mystical powers and overseeing a territory of continental expanse. Yet the
position of the Czar differed from that of his Chinese counterpart in one important respect. In the Chinese view, the Emperor ruled wherever possible through the
serenity of his conduct; in the Russian view, the leadership of the Czar prevailed through his ability to impose his will by unchallengeable assertions of authority and
to impress on all onlookers the Russian states overwhelmingly vast power. The Chinese Emperor was conceived of as the embodiment of the superiority of Chinese
civilization, inspiring other peoples to come and be transformed. The Czar was seen as the embodiment of the defense of Russia against enemies surrounding it on
all sides.
b. China
Since the times [Han Dynasty 2nd century B.C.]when Europe was
rules by the Roman Empire as a unity a different concept of
order existed on the other end of the Eurasian landmass: it did
not base itself on the sovereign equality of states but on the
presumed boundlessness of the Emperors reach. In this
concept, sovereignty in the European sense did not exist,
because the Emperor held sway over All Under Heaven[ ].
China, in this view, would order the world primarily by awing
other societies with its cultural magnificence and economic
bounty, drawing them into relationships that could be managed
to produce the aim of harmony under heaven [ ] >
Confucianism.
Confucianism [Confucius is by some also called the founder of
sociology] ordered the world into tributaries in a hierarchy
defined by approximations of the Chinese culture. [] Thus
China felt no need to go abroad to discover a world it
considered already ordered, or best ordered by the cultivation
of morality internally;
c. Islam
In much of the region between Europe and China, Islams
different universal concept of world order - starting in
the 7th century A.D. - held sway, with its own version of a
single divinely sanctioned governance uniting and
pacifying the world: expand over the realm of war, as
it called all regions populated by unbelievers, until the
whole world was a unitary system brought into harmony
by the message of the Prophet Muhammad.
Islam divided the world order into a world of peace, that
of Islam, and a world of war, inhabited by unbelievers.
Islam could achieve the theoretical fulfillment of world
order only by conquest or global proselytization, for
which the objective conditions did not exist.
"Islam percent population in each nation World Map Muslim data by Pew Research"
by M Tracy Hunter - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islam_percent_population_in_each_nation_World_
Map_Muslim_data_by_Pew_Research.svg#mediaviewer/File:Islam_percent_population_in_
each_nation_World_Map_Muslim_data_by_Pew_Research.svg
http://www.businessinsider.com/arms-sales-by-the-us-and-russia-2014-8
http://www.angrybureaucrat.com/2011/05/mapping-stereotypes-tragicomic-maps-of.html
This map illustrates the problems the U.S. has in the Middle East right now - sure, the U.S.
is all for democracy everywhere, but many of those dictators being deposed were good
allies of the U.S.
http://www.angrybureaucrat.com/2011/05/mapping-stereotypes-tragicomic-maps-of.htm
l
e. Hinduism
Hinduism, which perceived cycles of history and
metaphysical reality transcending temporal
experience, treated its world of faith as a
complete system not open to new entrants by
either conquest or conversion.
Q: Can there be a single world order?
Compare to the philosophical and
psychological concepts of revolution and
revolt acquiring exterior order and
acquiring interior order which one has to
come first that the other one follows
ensuite? [Buddhism or Hinduism].
f. Socialism
Marxist-Leninist socialism failed, but claimed global reach,
encompassing all mankind > revolution
The Soviet Union insisted on shaping a new international, social and
political structure of Eastern Europe on a principle laid down by Stalin in
1945: Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social
system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can
reach. It cannot be otherwise.
[George Kennan] At some point in Moscows futile confrontations with
the outside world, some Soviet leader would feel the need to achieve
additional support by reaching out beyond the Party apparatus to the
general public, which was immature and inexperienced, having never
been permitted to develop an independent political sense. But if the
unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument was ever so
disrupted, Soviet Russia might be overnight changed from one of the
strongest one to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national
societies. This prediction essentially correct was Wilsonian in the
belief that at the end of the process democratic principles would
prevail, that legitimacy would trump power.
Kissinger explicitly compares China with 20th century Germany; interesting because I have asked
myself this question quite often: if not only individuals, but also societies live and develop in
different time cycles [compare to the theory of German philosopher Karl Bloch] then it is to be
asked if analogies between Europes history and Far East Asias development are possible?
Geopoliticial Analogy: although such comparisons have been strongly rejected on the Chinese side, it is
without doubt that China can regionally only be compared with Germany in terms of geopolitics and
economic output. China overtook the US in 2014 in PPP as world largest economy; Germany threatened
Britains leading position at the beginning of WWI. Moreover, Japan the hereto 2 nd largest economy can only
be compared by means of its racial and cultural proximity as well as its geographic peculiarity as what Great
Britain is to Germany. In both situation, the US is somewhat protecting the nation which is challenged in its
regional hegemony.
Economic Analogy: although the industrial revolution started out in England already in the mid 18 th century
and took much longer than in Japan, both economies were the driving forces of economic development in
their region; causing neighboring nations to aspire to its position. In the second half of the 19 th century,
Germany did catch up with Britain in terms of economic output as China did during the last 30 years.
Differences: scale and development. The only differences that I see in between the two cases are the size of
the involved economies and the accelerated development. Both factors imply a much more disastrous
outcome if a war cant be avoided. It is therefore paramount that the Far East Asian nations and those
bordering the South Chinese Sea form a preventive partnership, which is comparable to the EU.
Some people I talk to perceive China in a comparable situation to Germany before WWI, some in a
comparable situation to Germany before WWII. I hold the opinion that it is a mix of both: In terms of regional
geopolitics and accelerated industrialization [compare Stefan Zweigs account of national hybris due to new
technological power in Europe before WWI in Die Welt von gestern] we see a situation very similar to Europe
before WWI, but in terms of a collective mental state some parallels with fascist governments before WWII
are all too obvious. Chinas technocrat and authoritarian regime which uses modern information technologies
to divide the Chinese mind from all foreign pollution builds up a similar nationalism that was so typical for
early Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. [compare Michael Ledeen: China's leaders believe they command a
people, not merely a geographic entity. [] Just like Germany and Italy in the interwar period, China feels
betrayed and humiliated, and seeks to avenge historic wounds. [] Fascism may well have been a potentially
stable system, despite the frenzied energies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. After all, fascism did
not fall as the result of internal crisis; it was destroyed by superior force of arms.]
China, Korea, Japan, and the US, with Russia and Vietnam as peripheral participants,
are approaching a balance of power
But it differs from the historical balances of power in that one of the key participants,
the US, has its center of gravity located far from the geographic center of East Asia
and because China and the US, whose military forces conceive themselves as
adversaries in their military journals and pronouncements also proclaim partnership as
a goal on political and economic issues.
The US is an ally of Japan and a proclaimed partner of China a situation comparable
to Bismarcks when he made an alliance with Austria balanced by a treaty with Russia.
The political and economic map of Asia illustrates the regions complex tapestry. It
comprises industrially and technologically advanced countries in Japan, the Republic of
Korea, and Singapore, with economies and standards of living rivaling those of Europe;
three countries of continental scale in China, India, and Russia; two large
archipelagoes (in addition to Japan), the Philippines and Indonesia, composed of
thousands of islands and standing astride the main sea-lanes; three ancient nations
with populations approximating those of France or Italy in Thailand, Vietnam, and
Myanmar; huge Australia and pastoral New Zealand, with largely European-descended
populations; and North Korea, a Stalinist family dictatorship bereft of industry and
technology except for a nuclear weapons program. A large Muslim-majority population
prevails across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and
Indonesia, and sizeable Muslim minorities exist in India, China, Myanmar, Thailand,
and the Philippines.
Europe has set out to depart from the state system it designed and to transcend it through a
concept of pooled sovereignty. [] And ironically, though Europe invented the balance-ofpower concept, it has consciously and severely limited the element of power in its new
institutions. Having downgraded its military capacities, Europe has little scope to respond when
universal norms are flouted.
Q: is Europe still a to be taken serious member of the international order is economic might
enough therefore?
Q: is the disintegration of the nation-state a threat per se or only if forced by the
spread of Islam? Compare The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr > the
village community as ideal size for a human society.
Q: does it really make a difference to the Western person whether its life style
would gradually or abruptly change into a new religious or new cultural world order?
To my mind, religion is part of culture. If a theocratic-totalitarian world order is
declared in the name of religion it is set equal, with what is considered to be
culture; in secular states though religion is only one facet of culture, with a
nevertheless deeply ingrained nature, which differs from nation to nation and from
region to region. [compare Martin Jacques: When China Rules the World; Niall
Ferguson: Civilization; China: Turmoil and Triumph]
Nuclear Proliferation
It seems obvious that nuclear weapons are only means to keep the balance of power; its
application would cause devastation which any country wants to avoid [even though Mao is
quoted to having said, that even nuclear weapons dont instill fear to the Chinese people,
because in case of a nuclear war the multitude of the Chinese population would give him the
upper hand in an eventual outcome].
China actively engages in international diplomacy with objectives that are counterproductive
to keeping nuclear Islam at bay [compare The Diplomat: How China Complicates the Iranian
Nuclear Talks]
China pushes similar strategies in regard to North Korea: instead of allowing and supporting a
reunification of the sister nations, it calls a delinquent North Korean government - bereft of
technology except for a nuclear weapons program - its ally, similar to the UdSSRs
relationship with Cuba during the Bay of Pigs crisis in the 60ies. Kissinger is therefore surely
on the right track when he assumes that working out a collaborative strategy for a
denuclearized, unified Korea between China and the US would leave all parties more secure
and more free.
Bismark: We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and
the weak grows strong because of his audacity. The existence of nuclear weapons in North
Korea provide an incentive for Japan and Sought Korea to create a nuclear military capability.
For China, North Korea embodies complex legacies. In many Chinese eyes, the Korean War is
seen as a symbol of Chinas determination to end its century of humiliation and stand up
on the world stage, but also as a warning against becoming involved in wars whose origins
China does not control and whose repercussions may have serious long-range, unintended
consequences. This is why China and the US have taken parallel positions in the UN Security
Cyberspace Technology
Cyber technology though is a means suiting the Chinese negotiation style: gradual assimilation of the nonChinese world to the realm of the Chinese cultural hemisphere. In terms of e-business such a tendency is
already visible. The sheer size of the Chinese market pooled with the autocratic government made it
possible that Alibaba outgrew Ebay, Baidu outgrew Google and Huawei Oracle.
International trade, in particular e-commerce, corrodes an important factor of national sovereignty:
taxation authority over its subjects (natural and legal persons)
China applies IT technology to separate China from the rest: If China can not shape the internet, the
internet will shape China [compare my own essay and the Sinica podcast on the Wuzhen internet
conference]
In the virtual world a new world order is about to be formed and will come into full force within the next
years. There already is a virtual world of freedom and Chinese censorship: one virtual world created and
approved by a central government reigning over 1.3 billion people, tailored to the ideal Han Chinese
mind and many virtual realities not approved by the Chinese government and kept at bay by a Great
Chinese Firewall. And with the shaping of the WWW structure China will as strongest contender for the
supremacy in this virtual international order gain the upper hand. All the other nations perceive the WWW
as a space defined by freedom, so governments have hitherto abstained from regulating it purposefully.
The strategic separation of Chinese contents from non-Chinese contents is on a big scale comparable to
book burnings under Nazi Germany.
https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/resources/China.pdf
Europe
Russia
Muslim
Turkish
Muslim
Arabic
China
800:
Charlemagn
e crowned
Imperator
Romanoru
m by Pope
Leo III:
defend on
all sides the
holy church
of Christ
from pagan
incursion
and infidel
davastation
abroad
1624: Armand-Jean du
Plessis, Cardinal de
Richelieu developed a
radical approach to
international order. He
invented the idea that the
state was an abstract and
permanent entity existing
in tis own right. Its
requirements were not
determined by the rulers
personality, family
interests, or the universal
demands of religion. Its
lodestar was the national
interest following
calculable principles
what later came to be
known as raison detat.
Hence it should be the
basic unit of international
relations.
Royal power would
continue to be exercised
by the King as the symbol
of the sovereign state and
an expresion of the
national interest.
Richilieu saw the turmoil
in central Europe not as a
call to arms to defend the
Church but as a means to
check imperial Habsburg
preeminence.
For two and a half
centuries from the
emergence of Richelieu in
1624 to Bismarcks
proclamation of the
German Empire in 1871
the aim of keeping Central
Europe (more or less
Germany, Austria and
Northern Italy) divided
remained the guiding
principle of French foreign
policy.
1648: Westphalian
Peace Balance
of Power system
(independent states
refraining from
interference in each
others domestic
affairs and checking
each others
ambitions through a
general equilibrium
of power)
established due to
political diversity
(no force strong
enough to
subjugate all
others) and
fracture of
religious unity
(spread of
Protestantism)
division and
multiplicity, an
accident of
European history
became the
hallmarks of a new
system of
international order.
The papacy had
been confined to
ecclesiastical
functions, and the
doctrine of
sovereign equality
reigned.
Thomas Hobbes
provided a theory to
justify the functions
of a secular political
order in 1651 in
Leviathan.
1815: Viennese
Congress
THE FIRST HALF of
the eighteenth
century was
dominated by the
quest to contain
France; the
second was
shaped by
Prussias effort to
find a place for
itself among the
major powers.
1871: Bismarck
proclaims the
Unification of
Germany
[comparable to
1949?]
1945: European
Community on
Steel and Coal
1973, 1981, 1986,
1995, 2008: EU
The European
equilibrium,
historically authored
by the states of
Europe, had turned
into an aspect of the
strategy of outside
powers. The North
Atlantic Alliance
established a
regular framework
for consultation
between the United
States and Europe
and a degree of
coherence in the
conduct of foreign
policy. But in its
essence, the
European balance of
power shifted from
internal European
arrangements to the
containment of the
Soviet Union
globally, largely by
way of the nuclear
capability of the
United States. After
the shock of two
devastating wars,
the Western
European countries
were confronted by
a change in
geopolitical
perspective that
challenged their
sense of historical
identity.
the objective of
European policy was
primarily
psychological: to
oblige the United
States to treat
Europe as an
extension of itself in
case of an
emergency.
The geopolitical
nature of the
European order was
fundamentally
transformed when
there no longer
existed a substantial
military threat from
within Europe.