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The emergence of Realism
The emergence of Realism
The emergence of Realism
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Who is Henry Kissinger? Is he as Jussi Hanhamaki terms him “Dr. Kissinger” (the prince of realpolitik who put his remarkable insights to the service of a nation in deep trouble) or “Mr. Henry” (the power-hungry, bureaucratic schemer bent on self-aggrandizement)? This dichotomy is not the only one that exists when discussing Henry Kissinger. Stephen Graubard, Gregory Cleva, Walter Issacson and Jussi Hanhimäki have all written works that view Kissinger differently. Some of the differences are slight and all four sometimes agree but the best interpretation of Kissinger lies in viewing him through a lens of historical context. This view produces the image of Kissinger as realist who ultimately failed to account for the changing forces in foreign policy, ultimately this leads to his estimation as an architect of American foreign policy whose flaws kept him from realizing the paradigm he established of triangular diplomacy and détente would fail in many parts of the world.
The views of Kissinger are as numerous and varied as the works that are based on his life. This paper examines four, one a biography by Walter Issacson, an examination of the formation of Kissinger’s political thought by Stephen Graubard, a work on Kissinger’s role in the formation of American foreign policy by Gregory Cleva and the book and complementary article by Jussi Hanhimäki which seeks to reconcile the views of disparate authors with newly released documentary evidence.
Stephen Graubard focused on Kissinger’s writing and career pre-1969. Graubard’s work, published in 1973, viewed Kissinger not as a realist, or a historicist but as a statesman. The statesman, based on European models was intellectual and diplomatic . Graubard’s Kissinger saw peace as ...
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... interval is a different argument. So many years out of office Kissinger remains the single most fascinating player on the American stage. For somebody who is supposedly a ranting, raving, self-serving narcissist in the vein of Mr. Henry that is quite a feat.
Bibliography
Cleva, Gregory. Henry Kissinger and the American Approach to Foreign Policy. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1989.
Graubard, Stephen. Kissinger: Portrait of a Mind. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1973.
Hahnimäki, Jussi. The Flawed Architect: Henry Kissinger and American Foreign Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
---------------------. “’Dr. Kissinger’ or ‘Mr. Henry’? Kissingerology, Thirty Years and Counting.” Diplomatic History 27(5) (November 2003): 637-676.
Issacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992.
Crockatt, Richard. The fifty years war : the United States and the Soviet Union in world politics, 1941-1991. London; New York; Routledge, 1995.
As we move into the reelection year, the authors accuse Nancy of ensuring that Reagan hasn’t campaigned for eight months, following a “Rose Garden strategy.” But Reagan has no credible opponent for the 1984 nomination, and Walter Mondale, who will be his Democratic opponent in the general election, has not yet been nominated. So there is no need for a strategy, Rose Garden or otherwise. Of course we get the full chapter and verse on Reagan’s poor performance in his first debate with Mondale; at least we also get the report on the second debate. From there the narrative jumps to the Iran-Contra affair. A few high points — like the Berlin Wall speech in 1987 — are indeed included, but without any perspective on Reagan’s strategy, perseverance with the Soviets on arms control, or success in revitalizing the U.S. economy. Nothing is said about Reagan’s four second-term summits with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Except for a few comments that Reagan deplored Communism, this is a policy-free book, and a book
While the economic recession certainly influenced this preference of the Clinton administration, it can also be attributed to the same distaste for foreign intervention among the public that impacted Bush’s limited engagement in Iraq in 1991 (the “Vietnam Syndrome”). As can be witnessed in the aforementioned 1999 foreign policy speech, Clinton’s belief in “assertive multilateralism” (a term coined by his Secretary of State Madeline Albright) relied more heavily on free trade and international organisations such IMF and World Bank. Indeed, towards the end of the speech, he declared that while efforts should be made to “keep our soldiers out of war”, the United States should, at the same time, “finally pay both our dues and our debts to the United
In the history of the United States, foreign policy has caused many disputes over the proper role in international affairs. The views, morals and beliefs of Americans, makes them feel the need to take leadership of the world and help those countries who are in need. The foreign policies of President Eisenhower will eventually lead to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. President Eisenhower’s role in these policies was based on his military-type strategies to safeguard a victory in the Global Cold War. President Eisenhower’s foreign policies led to an effective involvement in the Cold War and enviably the Vietnam War from an American perspective.
This unfortunate legacy of failure in Vietnam carried far past the end of his service as Secretary of Defense. For years after, there have been ongoing debates as to what factors led the outcome of the Vietnam War. It wasn’t until 1995 that Robert McNamara contributed his own viewpoint on where the responsibility for the result of the war fell. McNamara’s memoir, “In Retrospect”, chronicles his perspective on the role he played as Secretary of Defense. It is apparent in his memoir that the public image associated with McNamara is vastly different from the McNamara he presents. Ironically, this infamous war he was so commonly know for may have been a war that privately he did not support.[1] This raises the question—was this hawk actually a
4. Zinn disputes Kissinger's statement because in Kissinger's book, he discusses how from the viewpoint of the leaders of nineteenth century Europe that everything was peaceful but he ignores the working class and those who suffered from the decisions made by these leaders. Kissinger claims that "peace" had been restored in Europe, but for the lower classes, everything was far from peaceful.
In the film The Fog of War, McNamara learns a number of lessons from the figures of the 20th-century American government. The film offers a view on the human side of the people entrusted to the control the United States and the way their personalities affect the state’s policies. The film provides an insight for historians and politicians into the way individuals and different personalities influence the decisions of the U.S foreign policy. The film is a focus on the fragile side of the leaders in both the mental and physical capacities. The lessons of McNamara indicate the influence of human decisions on the international relations of a nation as seen from the theories of global politics.
Hammond, Thomas, Editor. Witnesses to the Origins of the Cold War. University of Washington Press. Seattle, 1982.
David Reynolds has written and enlightening book named “From Munich to Pearl Harbor” discussing three main objectives dealing with World War II. The first of the three objectives is to provide a detailed and clear narrative story from the years between Munich to Pearl Harbor. The second of the three purposes or objectives of the book is to analyze and show how President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the American people into a new perspective on international relations that were different from anything Americans had known. The last of the three objectives of the book is to show the developments between the years of 1938 through 1941. Many of these developments were very important later for the foreign policy of the United States not only during the Second World War but also during the Cold War complications with Russia and today with President Bush’s war on terror currently taking place in Iraq.
After reading three separate accounts of the crisis in Angola (U.S. Senate hearings led by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, a personal memoir by 1975 Assistant Secretary of State Nathaniel Davis, and a biography entitled In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story by John Stockwell), I have come to several conclusions. Although these three men all held important positions in the U.S. government, multiple contradictions exist in their chronologies of events. Of the discrepancies I found, all of them put Stockwell in opposition with Kissinger and Davis. I believe this is due to his position in the Central Intelligence Agency, where the greater availability of information was his advantage. Moreover, since all three accounts agree that the U.S. involvement was essentially a covert operation led by the CIA, I feel the account written by Stockwell was the most valid of the three.
Nye, Jr., Joseph S. “Hard and Soft Power in American Foreign Policy.” In Paradox of American Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 4-17. Print.
... the president, would be the secretaries of states, defense (war and navy), and treasury”(Davidson and Lytle, 2010). Sometimes political actors would turn a less influential office into an important command post just like Henry Kissinger did when was Richard Nixon’s security advisor. Kissinger and Nixon had rehsaped teh style and substance of froeign affairs. Kissinger had saw Russia as a rival and had sought out to achieve global balance of power by pursuing areas of cooperation with Moscow. “With Nixon’s approval, Kissinger concentrated foreign policy-making power within foreign affairs bureaucracy and effectively curtailing the authority of Secretary of States William Rodgers”(1996-2009 WGBH Educational Foundation).
Richard Neustadt today is a professor of politics and has written many books on subjects pertaining to government and the inter workings of governments. He has many years of personal experience working with the government along with the knowledge of what makes a president powerful. He has worked under President Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. His credibility of politics has enhanced his respect in the field of politics. His works are studied in many Universities and he is considered well versed in his opinions of many different presidents. It is true that he seems to use Truman and Eisenhower as the main examples in this book and does show the reader the mistakes he believes were made along the way in achieving power.
The major rise of American foreign influence, and thus the need for cohesive foreign policy, materialized just prior to WWII, and prompted the powerful Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, to advocate interdepartmental coordination between the State, War, and Navy entities. The subsequent global (and total) victories by the Allies in WWII heavily influenced the main crafters of foreign policy by demonstrating that military power and international obligations held muc...
Taubman, William. Stalin's American Policy: From Entente to Detente to Cold War. New York: Norton, 1982. Print.