He’s spent decades cultivating a friendship with Putin, but he’s also advocated for Iran and China.
Speaking
at the Davos, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser
Henry Kissinger counseled Ukraine to cede Russia territory in order to end the
war. “Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” he
said last month. “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the
freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.” Make no mistake:
Kissinger is wrong. Rather than bring peace, his advice would spark future
conflict by teaching Russia that aggression brings rewards. Kissinger’s remarks
did not come from nowhere, however. He has spent more than two decades excusing
Moscow’s abuse of its neighbors while forging a personal friendship with
Vladimir Putin.
Kissinger
has long been the prince of so-called “realism.” For decades before his secret
1971 visit, Communist China was an international pariah. Kissinger brokered
rapprochement, however, to make common cause against the Soviet Union. He later
argued China was simply the lesser of two evils. “The difference between
[China] and the Russians is,” he quipped, “if you drop some loose change, when
you go to pick it up, the Russians will step on your fingers and the Chinese
won’t.”
After
the Cold War, Kissinger began to advocate a far softer line toward the
Russians. More than two decades ago, Kissinger said, “I believed that the
Soviet Union should not abandon Eastern Europe so quickly.” Russian President
Vladimir Putin seized upon the comment as intellectual sustenance. The two men then met regularly. Kissinger,
who called Putin a “great patriot,” hosted the Russian leader at his house in
New York for dinner. Putin reciprocated and flattered Kissinger for his
knowledge of Russian culture and made him honorary professor of the Diplomatic
Academy of Russia.
For
Putin, Kissinger became a useful tool given the esteem with which so many in
Washington held the former secretary. Before Russia’s invasion of Georgia,
Kissinger characterized the Kremlin’s foreign policy under Putin “as driven in
a quest for a reliable strategic partner, with America being the preferred
choice” and urged America to “show greater sensitivity to Russian
complexities.” When Putin invaded the former Soviet Republic in August 2008,
Kissinger dismissed it as a “crisis,” not a war, and advised that “isolating
Russia is not a sustainable long-range policy.” Kissinger’s trust in Putin
appears to have colored President Barack Obama’s embrace of a “reset” with
Russia that, in turn, allowed Russia to act with impunity and obscured the
threat Putin posed.
In 2014,
as Russia began its encroachment on Ukraine, Kissinger advised that “to Russia,
Ukraine can never be just a foreign country.” The United States should be more
deferential to Putin’s point of view, he warned, and “avoid treating Russia as
an aberrant to be patiently taught rules of conduct established by Washington.”
In effect, compromise with the Kremlin trumped the post-World War II European
order, based on prohibiting armed aggression against sovereign neighbors.
Unfortunately,
accommodating aggressive dictatorships is a staple of Kissinger’s wisdom. While
he often warns about the dangers of a nuclear Iran, his policy prescriptions
often undercut pressure on Tehran. In 2006, less than five years after George
W. Bush labeled Iran as part of an “Axis of Evil,” Kissinger turned repeatedly
to the Washington Post to urge compromise. Two years later, he suggested
Washington could do business with Tehran. Iran’s state-controlled press
headlined counsel that the Bush administration “should be prepared to negotiate
about Iran.” Here, too, his soft spot for Russia undercut his analysis. He
repeatedly argued, for example, that Russia would be America’s ally against
Iran’s nuclearization. In reality, the Kremlin has been among its greatest
facilitators.
If
Kissinger undermined pressure against Iran’s leaders, his lackadaisical
attitude toward China’s rise has been even more bizarre. A half-century ago, he
ingratiated himself to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai by badmouthing Indian Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi, leader of the world’s most populous democracy. To this
day, Indians resent how he threw them under the bus less than a decade after
China’s land grabs in Kashmir and Ladakh.
Zhou, meanwhile, cultivated friends to be unwitting intelligence assets
and agents of influence. As the Spectator observed in its exposé of Kissinger’s
subsequent relationship with China, “The best agents … are the ones who don’t
know they are agents.”
Kissinger’s
friendship with China was multifaceted and profitable. Five years after leaving
Foggy Bottom, Kissinger formed Kissinger Associates in part to facilitate the
entrance of American business into China. He gathered top diplomats and
national security officials and used his and their collective influence among
the foreign policy and business elite—especially those who aspired a share of
the China gold rush—to launder the Communist regime’s image. This was crucial
in the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy uprising that China
crushed. For a short time, there was bipartisan recognition of the threat an
authoritarian China prosed. Behind the scenes, though, Kissinger urged George
H.W. Bush to mute his response, avoid sanctions, and cease efforts to isolate
China. Soon, American investment resumed.
Kissinger
is not the first statesman to make moral compromises after leaving office.
Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder famously joined Gazprom, the Russian
energy firm, after leaving office, not only cashing in on his former office but
also using his stature to downplay concerns about the Kremlin’s intentions.
Kissinger might have served honorably, but it is time that Americans who
prioritize democracy and liberalism ask whether Kissinger has effectively
become the American Schröder.
***Ivana
Stradner is an adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Michael
Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
https://thedispatch.com/p/henry-kissingers-long-history-of?s=r