Henry Kissinger’s legacy will be debated for a very long time. His life as a practitioner of foreign policy — shaping the extremely consequential Nixon administration and advising many others aside — will always be elevated by his output as an analyst, a writer of gripping books about foreign-policy realism, the concert of Europe, and even his book on China.

NR’s editorial obituary rightly places China’s opening to the U.S. as the centerpiece legacy of Kissinger’s career as a diplomat. While this greatly contributed to restoring American advantage in the Cold War, it was, like our alliance with Stalin in World War II — a move with severe costs.

It is impossible to reconstruct an alternative history of China after 1975. But our warped co-dependence on Beijing comes with incredible downsides. When the Soviet Union imploded, it only brought itself down. Such may not be the case if China’s planners turn out to be as fallible as those of Moscow. Our economic marriage with the CCP has allowed America to to live far beyond our means. And it has caused us to finance the military expansion of our only serious global rival. If and when a financial or economic crisis threatens the regime in China, we will not be insulated from the effects. Kissinger became a leading consultant for the CCP in the post–Cold War era. It would be wrong to blame him as the sole cause of this entanglement — he wasn’t. But he was representative of our elites believing they could do well for themselves while doing good for the world by getting into bed, once again, with Communists.

Kissinger, like many men of his type, was intelligent enough to delude himself that he was seducing his bedmates for his purposes. Nations are frequently cursed with such men.

QOSHE - Kissinger As Symbol - Michael Brendan Dougherty
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Kissinger As Symbol

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30.11.2023

Henry Kissinger’s legacy will be debated for a very long time. His life as a practitioner of foreign policy — shaping the extremely consequential Nixon administration and advising many others aside — will always be elevated by his output as an analyst, a writer of gripping books about foreign-policy realism, the concert of Europe, and even his book on China.

NR’s editorial obituary rightly places China’s opening to........

© National Review


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