Facing New Global Realities

...In the Middle East and Africa religious and ethnic conflict promise to remain endemic problems...

...Kissinger's chapter on globalization deserves mention too...

...Nevertheless, Kissinger seems to be falling on his own sword here, misconstruing the European Union (EU) and its trajectory because he is importing assumptions from an earlier generation—his own...

...Asia is the one region of the world still playing by the traditional rules of realpolitik...

...But it will use its weight primarily to strengthen institutions of collective governance and to enlarge the EU, not to pursue its own national selfinterest or seek a separate peace with Russia...

...foreign policy...

...Reviewed by Charles A. Kupchan Senior fellow, Council on Foreign Relations...

...The United States is currently at the peak of its power, arguably more influential than any other country in history...

...But Europe is not in congenital opposition to the United States...

...professor of international affairs, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University Henry Kissinger has now added his name to the growing list of intellectuals proffering an American grand strategy for the 21 st century...

...A more independent EU does not fit the traditional model of Europe as America's junior partner, and is thus alien to Kissinger's instincts...

...Yet it is precisely these traditional models that we must all update if the U.S...

...It is fortunate that the Republicans have an authoritative voice of their own counseling them to cool off...

...He devotes a separate chapter to each region of the world, identifies the unique forces at play, and explains how they are likely to interact with U.S...

...Indeed, the Bush Administration has already succeeded in alienating Europe, Russia and China by rejecting the Kyoto protocol on the environment, by indicating that it intends to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, and by pursuing other policies that are too unilateralist in both tone and substance...

...It is first-rate, no small accomplishment for someone who has spent most of his career concentrating on the diplomatic, not the economic, side of the house...

...the EU has entered the postsovereign era and is building a collective union that has succeeded in sublimating the national state...

...Kissinger's charges against Clinton come off as a partisan jab, not a principled critique...

...And Thomas L. Friedman identified globalization as the new defining force in the international arena...

...is to have an effective foreign policy for the 21 st century...

...Even Iran, America's bête noire since the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini toppled the Shah in the 1979 revolution, is not irredeemable...

...Relying on the U.S.-Japan alliance as a foundation, Washington should seek to channel the growing power of China and India toward benign ends, and at the same time try to further rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula...

...Meanwhile, "the United States should be pre pared to undertake a serious effort of joint diplomacy' with its allies and pursue "a firm, consistent, and conciliatory policy...

...relations with China are likely to face major strains, but he argues against prematurely identifying China as an implacable enemy and pursuing a policy of rigid containment...

...Bush's advisers are all exCold Warriors, seeking to impose a realist template on a world that refuses to conform...

...An outmoded view of Europe similarly colors Kissinger's attitude toward the EU's efforts to build a new defense force capable of operating independently of the U.S...

...With much of the world no longer playing by the traditional balance-of-power rules, he has no choice but to adapt his thinking to new realities if he is to develop an accurate take on what lies ahead—which for the most part he succeeds in doing...

...national interests...

...Furthermore, if the legacies of the past are misleading U.S...

...Kissinger sees this move as one intended primarily to give the EU more autonomy, arising in part from a European identity that is in "almost congenital opposition to the United States...

...military...

...Kissinger strays from his realist origins because he knows he must...

...It is just maturing as a collective entity, pursuing the same "enlightened self-interest" that Kissinger urges should guide U.S...

...arsenal the notion of proportional use of force...

...He recognizes that transatlantic harmony cannot be taken for granted and recommends both an Atlantic Steering Group (a body of the major players) and an Atlantic free-trade area as means of maintaining and deepening cooperation...

...Where precisely would the European Force operate...

...The Bismarckian tradition, however, is gone for good...

...In Africa, Kissinger urges the international community to improve its humanitarian assistance programs and to help nurture an African crisis intervention force centered around troops from South Africa and Nigeria...

...These attributes of globalization have the potential to trigger economic troubles and the political backlashes that often accompany them...

...Perhaps that is one reason he is curiously silent on the Bush team's early performance...

...The second front on which Kissinger runs into trouble is Europe—rather paradoxically, since it is the part of the world he knows best...

...All of these authors offered interesting insights, but they missed the boat by seeking to squeeze complexity into a single, overarching concept...

...Kissinger's tour d'horizon of the emerging international landscape has many strengths...

...He provides a welcome antidote to the overly optimistic accounts of Thomas Friedman and his fellow travelers, all of whom exaggerate the benign effects of globalization...

...troops into combat, hemming in Iraq's Saddam Hussein, bringing peace to Bosnia, and driving the forces of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic from Kosovo...

...Inequalities both within and among countries are growing rapidly...

...Samuel P. Huntington countered that history is picking up and war is making a comeback because of the clash of civilizations...

...Clinton's foreign policy had its weaknesses, but aversion to the use of force simply was not one of them...

...Based on his personal experience and contacts, Kissinger offers a series of useful pointers on how to advance the Arab-Israeli peace process...

...The analysis is accessible and lucid, at times overly simplistic for the specialist, but exactly right for the student or interested lay reader...

...The Clinton Administration used U.S...

...Kissinger recommends that the United States maintain a robust military presence in the region, and that the alliance with Japan should remain "the bedrock of America's Asian policy...

...His book also benefits from the fact that Kissinger resists the temptation to impose a single interpretive framework on a complicated global landscape...

...Economic structures are changing much more quickly than political ones...

...Yet in moving away from familiar ground he invites several logical tensions that occasionally trip up the otherwise elegant and persuasive analysis...

...All the chapters weave together history, culture and contemporary politics...

...interests...

...Washington should also pursue a free-trade area of the Americas to promote integration throughout the Hemisphere and pre-empt competition between the North American Free Trade Area and Mercosur, the evolving trade bloc in South America...

...No matter how selfless America perceives its aims," Kissinger admonishes, "an explicit insistence on predominance would gradually unite the world against the United States and force it into impositions that would eventually leave it isolated and drained...

...For readers seeking a thoughtful, balanced and erudite assessment of the emerging global landscape and what we have to do to prepare for it, Does America Need a Foreign Policy...

...Kissinger's measured stance is a product not only of his recognition of the importance of engaging countries like Russia and China, but also of his concern about an America that becomes overbearing and tries to do too much...

...He recognizes the strong idealist strains that are part of America's creed, but he cautions against humanitarian intervention, noting that the United States has neither the resources nor the domestic will "to right every wrong...

...The volume and pace of capital flows make effective management increasingly difficult...

...As a consequence, he concludes, Clinton spent eight years squandering American power and purpose...

...In Latin America, Kissinger argues, the United States should focus on helping to combat corruption, improving the rule of law, and stemming the flow of drugs...

...Kissinger does the opposite...

...Not so...

...He then adds two thematic chapters, one on globalization and one on peace and justice...

...should be at the top of the list...

...President Mohammad Khatami should be given time to advance his reformist agenda...

...If ardent American internationalists like Henry Kissinger are arguing that the United States should stay out of the Balkans, then Europe has absolutely no choice but to prepare to deal on its own with such threats to its well-being...

...In similar fashion, Kissinger observes that U.S...

...But it is passing on the opportunity afforded by this preponderance to shape the international system that will come next...

...He worries that Germany is becoming more assertive and may well attempt to strengthen its geopolitical position through "a special Russo-German rapprochement based on the Bismarckian tradition...

...The West needs to be careful," he says, "not to extend its integrated military system too close to Russia's borders...

...He criticizes the Clinton Administration for having pushed too quickly for a final status agreement at Camp David last year, suggesting that the new Bush team return to a paced, incremental strategy...

...During the 1990s, several accomplished scholars sought to replace the organizing principle of the Cold War—containment of the Soviet Union—with a new core idea...

...After all, he asks, "what exactly are the autonomous interests being served...

...military power in Bosnia and Kosovo to defend the integrity and relevance of the Atlantic Alliance and stop the southward spread of the war—important U.S...

...And he essentially answers his own question as to where such a European force would operate when he criticizes the Clinton Administration for intervening in Kosovo by arguing that "Kosovo represented no threat to American security in any traditional sense...

...Far from being constrained by the legacy of Vietnam, Clinton fought against perhaps its most powerful remnant—antipathy to limited war—and successfully brought back into the U.S...

...In the past few months, Germany's Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer have both given visionary speeches laying out plans for a federal Europe...

...A strong proponent of the first round of NATO enlargement into Central Europe, he now counsels the alliance to proceed cautiously with future expansion lest it trigger a hostile Russian reaction...

...Tobe sure, Germany is becoming more comfortable with leadership...

...Those are wise and timely words, especially given the hawkish team of foreign policy advisers amassed by President George W. Bush...

...His misconceptions do not diminish the major contribution that Kissinger makes to thinking through the challenges facing the United States...

...Through an incisive summary of the financial crises of the 1990s, Kissinger exposes the global economy's principal vulnerabilities...

...Europe's smaller countries are likely to be discomfited, he says, and try to court Russia as a counterweight to Germany...

...The Administration of President Bill Clinton," Kissinger writes, was "the first staffed by individuals who came out of the Vietnam protest...

...They recoiled from the concept of national interest and distrusted the use of power unless it could be presented as being in the service of some 'unselfish' cause—that is, reflecting no specific American national interest...

...Francis Fukuyama announced that history is ending and war dying out because of the spread of liberal democracy...

...He repeatedly sent U.S...

...Notable throughout Kissinger's analysis is his warning against the universal application of hard-line policies, fearing that they will merely alienate allies and provoke potential competitors...

...Most Americans, including the political class, have simply tuned out and pay little attention to foreign affairs...

...Germany is simply not about to go off on its own...

...Kissinger's own analysis makes clear the need for a more flexible and differentiated conceptual map...

...First, he mistakenly blames America's current strategic drift on the failings of the generation that came of age during the protest movement against the Vietnam War...

...The result," Kissinger laments, "is that the country's pre-eminence is coupled with the serious potential of becoming irrelevant to many of the currents affecting and ultimately transforming the global order...

...For starters, he correctly identifies the central paradox America finds itself in today...

...As for America's relationship with Europe, Kissinger counsels that the Atlantic democracies should revitalize their partnership, taking into account Europe's ongoing process of integration as well as the need to ensure "a significant role for Russia in the building of a new international order...

...An overly ambitious America also risks provoking the countervailing coalitions that have throughout history formed against dominant powers...

...Despite its many strengths, Kissinger's analysis veers off course on two important fronts...

...foreign policy, it is via the current Administration, not its predecessor...

...Instead, he calls for a "constructive relationship" and a "sustained geopolitical dialogue" between the two countries, while fully recognizing that Beijingmay not be willing to play along...

...Kissinger dismisses America's effective interventions in the Balkans as humanitarian digressions...

...Although renowned as one of this country's most distinguished practitioners of realpolitik, the Harvard professor-turned diplomatturned elder statesman has produced a book whose nuanced arguments and eclectic approach are quite striking...