foreignpolicy--2020-06-07--Welcome Back to Kissinger’s World

Welcome Back to Kissinger’s World

You can hate Henry Kissinger and think him evil .
What you can ’ t do is ignore him—especially now .
So argues Barry Gewen in his incisive new intellectual history of Kissinger and his times , The Inevitability of Tragedy .
Indeed , not only can we not ignore the old statesman , who turned 97 in May , but we need him more than ever .
To be precise , we desperately need Kissinger ’ s ideas and instincts about how to muddle our way through a world that , we now realize , isn ’ t working @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , from Washington ’ s perspective especially , has gotten Kissingerian again .
America ’ s crusades are over or at best are corroded and crumbling at their derelict foundations .
The Wilsonian crusaderism that transformed sensible Cold War containment into a futile and delusional battle against the myth of monolithic communism , ending horribly in Vietnam ; and then reawakened in the post-Cold War era as a neo-Reaganite call to end “ evil ” regimes , finishing tragically in Iraq , has all but exhausted itself .
No one wants anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much so that Americans put a frank neo-isolationist , Donald Trump , in the White House so that he could shut the country off from the world .
The coronavirus crisis has accelerated Trump ’ s agenda , inspiring a new wave of “ America First ” isolationism , as his trade representative , Robert Lighthizer , argued in a recent essay calling for a reversal of U.S. economic offshoring in response to China ’ s “ predatory trade and economic policies ” and deceptions over the origins of the pandemic .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blocs of previous eras , mulling the creation of an “ Economic Prosperity Network ” of like-minded countries that would detach themselves from China .
With the 2020 presidential race in full swing , Democrats too are sounding more and more like Cold Warriors toward China , with the party ’ s presumptive nominee , Joe Biden , hammering Trump for his occasional praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping .
And as a party , Democrats are questioning as never before liberal internationalist institutions that came out of their own tradition , such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) —largely because of a growing sense of grievance that China has exploited and violated WTO rules to rob middle-class Americans of their jobs .
The United States is not ready for any of this .
Certainly , U.S. diplomats have not figured a way out of it .
To be sure , the liberal international order and the system of alliances that emerged out of World War II three-quarters of a century ago still exist , thankfully , and we ’ ll continue to make use of them .
But mistrust among @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nonexistent , and each country seems inclined to go its own nationalist way .
Global institutions like the United Nations and WTO have become meek poor relations at the table , pleading for policy scraps , while Washington , Beijing , and Moscow jostle for a seat at the head .
Among nations the great ideological struggles are over—or at least in deep hibernation .
Over the course of the past century or so , we have witnessed the debunking of monarchy , authoritarianism , fascism , communism , and totalitarianism , each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And now , to a degree , we are also experiencing the failures of democracy , which in so many places seems polarized into paralysis , as in Washington , drowning in memes of misinformation and hacked by malign external forces like Russia .
We have also seen how capitalism—though it bested Cold War communism in terms of ownership of the means of production—has proved grossly unequal to the test of producing social equity .
The world ’ s chosen system is prone to continual collapse .
Just as significant , American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ ve been in living memory , especially following Trump ’ s divisive , polarizing first term , which culminated most recently in international condemnation of his brutal approach to the protests that erupted following the killing of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis .
Beyond that , the president ’ s puerile jingoism and fumbling coronavirus response have only completed the road to reputational ruin begun under President George W. Bush .
It is difficult now to remember how high American prestige was less than two decades ago , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post-Cold War unipolar moment when the Yale University historian Paul Kennedy observed that the lone superpower had surpassed even ancient Rome in economic and military dominance—and how quickly that went off course .
In what was possibly the worst strategic misdirection in U.S. history , Bush and his neoconservative abettors ( who are all in hiding now , conceptually speaking ) turned what should have been a globally unifying struggle against the international community ’ s remaining criminal holdouts , Islamist terrorists , into an exhausting imperialist game of invasion and whack-a-mole , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst vulnerabilities on the ground and in the air .
Then Bush did commensurate damage to the U.S. economy , ending in the Wall Street crash and Great Recession .
China , meanwhile , rose and spread its monied influence across the world , Vladimir Putin preened and plotted , and the Viktor Orbans , Narendra Modis , and Jair Bolsonaros went their own ways .
And Americans , disgusted with how badly they ’ d been misled , responded first by electing a freshman senator ( Barack Obama ) who rose to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war ” and who then vacillated for eight years over U.S. involvement overseas and finally by embracing America First populism .
All this brings us directly back to Kissinger , the great realist Hans Morgenthau ( who was his mentor ) , and the fierce geopolitical urgency of now .
Global anarchy beckons , and proliferating great-power rivalries demand savvy , hardheaded strategic diplomacy of the kind that Morgenthau conceived in theory and Kissinger mastered in practice .
This appears to be the main message of Gewen ’ s book , which demands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ moment when Sinophobia is surging and Beijing is giving back as good as it gets .
For China today , Gewen writes , is “ the Apatosaurus in the room.
” Yet it is just this likelihood of mutual weakness between the two great world powers that may provide a way out .
The answer begins by recognizing and accepting what we face today—which is a permanently gray world .
This is hard to accept for Americans , who for several generations since World War II and in the triumphalist aftermath of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world dominance .
But it is largely this chaotic 21st-century world that Morgenthau , though largely forgotten now except in academia , presciently described in the ur-text of modern realism more than 70 years ago , Politics Among Nations , and which Kissinger expanded on in his diplomatic career , as Gewen brilliantly documents in his book .
Morgenthau anticipated the present breakdown in the belief about the progress of human society when he said that the rationalists who pined for perfection in human governance and society denied the “ inevitability of tragedy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s main theme .
That is what every great statesman has known—that the “ choices he faced were not between good and evil … but between bad and less bad , ” writes Gewen , a longtime editor at the New York Times Book Review ( who , full disclosure , has occasionally assigned me reviews ) .
This describes much of Kissinger ’ s career , including the opening to China , the 1973 truce in the Middle East , even the chaotic and bloody end to the Vietnam War and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on his conscience .
Kissinger ’ s ideas have more resonance now because we are clearly in a place similar to the American weakness in the ’ 70s , when foreign-policy elites weren ’ t thinking of triumph but just survival .
Kissinger , it is true , is not an easy man to restore to good public opinion , as Gewen notes in considerable detail .
Kissinger and Richard Nixon oversaw the brutal campaign to force Hanoi to the table , dropping more bombs on Cambodia than all the bombs Allies dropped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths ; that policy , along with their indifference to the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and apparent support of the coup in Chile , helped provoke a generation of prominent liberals from Seymour Hersh to Christopher Hitchens to label Kissinger a paranoiac and a war criminal .
There was always a duplicity about his beliefs and shrouding of his motives—he knew that Americans weren ’ t going to fight to , in his words , “ preserve the balance of power.
” ( Gewen notes that Kissinger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after a visit , that Vietnam was unwinnable but still supported the war . )
Gewen tries to place Kissinger in the lineage of German Jewish thinkers who escaped the Holocaust and were haunted by the failures of Weimar democracy , along with Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt—though he ’ s not entirely persuasive here , given that some of Strauss ’ s often-obscure ideas later inspired the neocons and another such European refugee from Hitler , Madeleine Albright ( nee Korbel ) , ended up a passionate hard-power Wilsonian .
But Kissinger @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because we are clearly in a place similar to the American weakness in the ’ 70s , when foreign-policy elites weren ’ t thinking of triumph but just survival , as they should be now , especially when America ’ s internal problems are arguably as enervating as they were back then .
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Gewen ’ s book is that after spending hundreds of pages delving into the biographical and historical sources of Kissinger ’ s nuanced , Hitler-haunted realism , the author doesn ’ t apply it much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Because there is no greater vindication of Kissingerian realism than what has happened in China during the first decades of the 21st century .
After a quarter century in which it became fashionable in Washington to think that co-opting China into the post-Cold War system of global markets and emerging democracies would gradually nudge that country toward Enlightenment norms—what Kissinger once archly called “ the age-old American dream of a peace achieved by the conversion of the adversary ” —such illusions have faded away .
All we have left is an emerging @ @ @ @ @ @ @ view of a country he visited some 100 times , dating back to his first talks with Mao Zedong .
And if Kissinger ’ s analysis is correct—as it probably is—the United States and China can find accommodation if they work at it , with preaching kept to a minimum .
What the post-Cold War triumphalists didn ’ t understand , Gewen writes , is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union we confronted “ a world without ideology , in which transcendent prescriptions for democracy were no answers to the problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ become far worse than that .
We should frankly confront the postmodern reality that all hopes for the perfectibility of society and governance have fallen short ; there is no longer any Great Cause to launch a revolution over .
Thomas Jefferson ’ s “ ball of liberty , ” which Americans once expected to roll unfailingly across the globe , has ended up in a gutter .
The recent Nations in Transit report from Freedom House documents a “ stunning democratic breakdown ” —in particular pointing to failures in Central and Eastern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are “ fewer democracies in the region today than at any point since the annual report was launched in 1995.
” History will trundle on , weak Afghan-like states will continue to fail , and democracies and autocracies like the United States and China will remain in contention with each other .
But no one should delude themselves any longer that this clash of wills will yield some Great Teleological Outcome—a resolution in favor of one form of social and political organization over another .
As a result , as Kissinger once @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a special case.
” The new rise of nationalism , he wrote , might seek “ national or regional identity by confronting the United States.
” This is what Xi ’ s China has done .
Indeed , many of today ’ s nationalists are responding to Washington as the Soviets once did , consolidating national control by playing up the threat from foreign enemies .
And neonationalism across the globe should be dealt with in the same jujitsu manner George Kennan recommended against the Soviet Union : Reduce the perceived threat from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like China ’ s are more likely to wither on their own .
( Even now Xi may be facing a serious internal challenge ; Rudd , in his Foreign Affairs essay , writes that Xi ’ s coronavirus response “ has opened up significant political dissension within the Chinese Communist Party , even prompting thinly veiled criticism ” of his “ highly centralized leadership style.
” ) As Gewen notes , Kissinger observed in his 2011 book , On China , that even Mao , the Marxist revolutionary responsible for the deaths @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideologue like Lenin but a “ China-first ” nationalist and represented a country that had its own sense of exceptionalist insularity—like the United States—but unlike the Americans the Chinese regime saw little need for missionary zeal and proselytizing abroad .
China today is buying influence everywhere .
But creating so-called debt colonies around the globe is a lot less threatening than outright conquest .
The key is not to overreact .
And the choice is stark for both countries , Gewen writes .
“ One way or another , either through an intellectual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or through the wholesale shedding of blood , they will have to give up their cherished exceptionalism for a Westphalian system of international diversity and a more modest , if uncomfortable , equilibrium.
” Moreover , Washington and Beijing will need to bring in other major world powers to accept this new balance of power .
In particular , Kissinger—perhaps the most profound student of the centurylong peace that began with the Congress of Vienna and ended in August 1914—worries about the pre-World War I descent into aggression , an especially scary prospect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much of this outcome , Gewen writes .
Decades ago he foresaw that the Reagan era and the Cold War ’ s end would not prove a new beginning for American-style liberal democratic capitalism , as the neocons believed and liberal internationalists hoped , but was more “ in the nature of a brilliant sunset.
” While Kissinger conceded , as always , that Wilsonian idealism would continue to define the heart of U.S. foreign policy , he wrote that even in the triumph of the Cold War—which he admits was partly won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debate ( especially its role inside the Soviet bloc ) —U.S .
leaders would have to articulate a new balance of power “ to preserve equilibrium in several regions of the world , and these partners can not always be chosen on the basis of moral considerations alone.
” China too is engaged today in a self-searching debate about how far it can go in global dominance , and the country ’ s long history of geopolitical caution ( in deed if not always in word ) is encouraging .
Amid all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limits ” —one of Kissinger ’ s favorite words—lies the possibility of common ground , even if the two economies decouple in terms of supply chains and financial codependence .
For without smart , aggressive diplomacy to find a new balance of power , there is the possibility of a catastrophic , even world-ending misstep .
In particular , Kissinger—perhaps the most profound student of the centurylong peace that began with the Congress of Vienna and ended in August 1914—worries about the pre-World War I descent into aggression , an especially scary prospect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Washington and Beijing today , Europe ’ s leaders back then blithely thought “ risk taking was an effective diplomatic tool , ” Kissinger wrote .
Now Beijing is lining up armies of bots and billions of dollars against U.S. democracy , and many in Washington are recklessly calling for a new cold war to confront “ the imperialists in Beijing ” who are “ a menace to all free peoples , ” in the words of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley , a rising star in the Republican Party .
First task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the WTO , under which China has “ bent and abused and broken the rules of the international economic system to its own benefit ” and cost 3 million American jobs , Hawley said in a May 20 speech .
Another issue that both Kissinger and Morgenthau foresaw is that the more populist democracy becomes , the less able it is to conduct reliable foreign policy .
Morgenthau , who later broke with Kissinger over his opposition to the Vietnam War , especially saw the effect popular democracy would have on professional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Trump administration but also affected the ever dithering Obama and Bush administrations .
Kissinger picked up this theme in his 2001 book , Does America Need a Foreign Policy ?
, and in a 2018 article in the Atlantic that Gewen describes as his “ final lesson as a self-appointed educator of the American public.
” In the growth of cyberspace , Kissinger perceived a “ growing anarchy , which he equated with a Hobbesian state of nature in which the prospect of world order receded ever further from view … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the world encouraged a kind of irresponsible thinking that was deleterious to rational judgment at best , disastrous at worst.
” In making this assessment , Gewen writes , Kissinger revealed a side of himself that his many detractors would find hard to believe : Kissinger the humanist .
The algorithms and amassing of data in cyberspace—some of it sound , much of it not—threatened to undermine or even destroy good common sense .
“ [ T ] he successful conduct of foreign policy demands , above all , the intuitive ability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , ” Kissinger argued .
Anticipating future pitfalls , and relying more on pragmatic common sense than providence , is something Americans have to keep relearning .
Even the deistic Founders saw Providence on their side , and later American leaders like Ronald Reagan believed themselves to be doing the will of God .
Kissinger admired Reagan for his principled stand against the Soviets , but he also ironically referred back to a quote from the proto-realist he so admired , Otto von Bismarck , who said , “ The best a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the footsteps of God , get hold of the hem of his cloak , and walk with Him a few steps of the way.
” Kissinger appealed not to God but instead to a “ metaphysical humility , ” Gewen writes , “ an understanding that mere humans would never know all they needed to know as they engaged in the dangerous game of international affairs.
” That lack of certainty sounds squishy , but what is worse is to be too hard and unyielding—in a word , arrogant .
Hubris , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of moralizing led to the worst disasters in modern U.S. foreign-policy history , the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq .
A close review of the debates leading up to Vietnam , which Gewen delivers in some detail , and the Iraq invasion reveals the lamentable extent of overconfidence among U.S. policymakers in the God-given righteousness of America ’ s cause .
( The infamous phrase with which Bush made his final case for the Iraq invasion was , “ The liberty we prize is not America ’ s gift to the world , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanity.
” ) Did Reagan win the Cold War , as many conservatives believe ?
Even Kissinger has acknowledged that Reagan ’ s confrontational approach , as opposed to detente , “ had much to recommend it.
” But mainly Reagan was lucky ; he was the man who was in the room when 40 years of strategic patience—the policy of containment—paid off .
( Reagan himself must have known how lucky he was , since he was still desperately trying to negotiate arms reduction with Moscow , much to the consternation of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , even as the Soviet system was collapsing internally . )
Kissinger himself foresaw as well as anyone that slow and steady would eventually win the Cold War race , and even Kennan , the father of containment , once remarked that Kissinger “ understands my views better than anyone at [ the State Department ] ever has.
” In the end , the choice in front of us is not as difficult as we may think .
Kissinger lamented Wilsonianism ’ s excesses but conceded that it still formed the bedrock of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is possible if the Wilsonians accept that American sovereignty and hard power will always be sacrosanct and the America Firsters accept that the liberal international order the United States created , flawed as it is , will remain far more a protector than an antagonist , not least because it has gained majority consensus in the world and helps take the raw edge off Washington ’ s still dominant military power , preventing would-be rivals like Beijing and Moscow from forming alternative power blocs .
Striving openly for U.S. hegemony just won ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because no international order can survive if it isn ’ t viewed as just : “ The dominant trend in American foreign policy thinking must be to transform power into consensus so that the international order is based on agreement rather than reluctant acquiescence.
” Ragged though its dominance is , the United States , as chief author of this international order , still has the upper hand here .
Or as Kissinger wrote : “ Our goal should be to build a moral consensus which can make a pluralistic world creative rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the greater today .

You can hate Henry Kissinger and think him evil. What you can’t do is ignore him—especially now. So argues Barry Gewen in his incisive new intellectual history of Kissinger and his times, The Inevitability of Tragedy. Indeed, not only can we not ignore the old statesman, who turned 97 in May, but we need him more than ever. To be precise, we desperately need Kissinger’s ideas and instincts about how to muddle our way through a world that, we now realize, isn’t working very well—and probably never will.
You can hate Henry Kissinger and think him evil. What you can’t do is ignore him—especially now. So argues Barry Gewen in his incisive new intellectual history of Kissinger and his times, The Inevitability of Tragedy. Indeed, not only can we not ignore the old statesman, who turned 97 in May, but we need him more than ever. To be precise, we desperately need Kissinger’s ideas and instincts about how to muddle our way through a world that, we now realize, isn’t working very well—and probably never will.
The world, from Washington’s perspective especially, has gotten Kissingerian again. America’s crusades are over or at best are corroded and crumbling at their derelict foundations. The Wilsonian crusaderism that transformed sensible Cold War containment into a futile and delusional battle against the myth of monolithic communism, ending horribly in Vietnam; and then reawakened in the post-Cold War era as a neo-Reaganite call to end “evil” regimes, finishing tragically in Iraq, has all but exhausted itself. No one wants anything to do with transforming the world anymore—so much so that Americans put a frank neo-isolationist, Donald Trump, in the White House so that he could shut the country off from the world.
The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World, Barry Gewen, W.W. Norton, 452 pp., , April 2020
The coronavirus crisis has accelerated Trump’s agenda, inspiring a new wave of “America First” isolationism, as his trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, argued in a recent essay calling for a reversal of U.S. economic offshoring in response to China’s “predatory trade and economic policies” and deceptions over the origins of the pandemic. The Trump administration is even invoking the power blocs of previous eras, mulling the creation of an “Economic Prosperity Network” of like-minded countries that would detach themselves from China. With the 2020 presidential race in full swing, Democrats too are sounding more and more like Cold Warriors toward China, with the party’s presumptive nominee, Joe Biden, hammering Trump for his occasional praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping. And as a party, Democrats are questioning as never before liberal internationalist institutions that came out of their own tradition, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO)—largely because of a growing sense of grievance that China has exploited and violated WTO rules to rob middle-class Americans of their jobs.
The United States is not ready for any of this. Certainly, U.S. diplomats have not figured a way out of it. To be sure, the liberal international order and the system of alliances that emerged out of World War II three-quarters of a century ago still exist, thankfully, and we’ll continue to make use of them. But mistrust among allies is high, cooperation all but nonexistent, and each country seems inclined to go its own nationalist way. Global institutions like the United Nations and WTO have become meek poor relations at the table, pleading for policy scraps, while Washington, Beijing, and Moscow jostle for a seat at the head. Among nations the great ideological struggles are over—or at least in deep hibernation. Over the course of the past century or so, we have witnessed the debunking of monarchy, authoritarianism, fascism, communism, and totalitarianism, each of them tried and tested to destruction. And now, to a degree, we are also experiencing the failures of democracy, which in so many places seems polarized into paralysis, as in Washington, drowning in memes of misinformation and hacked by malign external forces like Russia. We have also seen how capitalism—though it bested Cold War communism in terms of ownership of the means of production—has proved grossly unequal to the test of producing social equity. The world’s chosen system is prone to continual collapse.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and Kissinger confer aboard Air Force One as it heads toward Brussels for NATO talks on June 26, 1974.
Just as significant, American prestige and power are as low as they’ve been in living memory, especially following Trump’s divisive, polarizing first term, which culminated most recently in international condemnation of his brutal approach to the protests that erupted following the killing of a black man in police custody in Minneapolis. Beyond that, the president’s puerile jingoism and fumbling coronavirus response have only completed the road to reputational ruin begun under President George W. Bush. It is difficult now to remember how high American prestige was less than two decades ago, as recently as Sept. 10, 2001—that post-Cold War unipolar moment when the Yale University historian Paul Kennedy observed that the lone superpower had surpassed even ancient Rome in economic and military dominance—and how quickly that went off course. In what was possibly the worst strategic misdirection in U.S. history, Bush and his neoconservative abettors (who are all in hiding now, conceptually speaking) turned what should have been a globally unifying struggle against the international community’s remaining criminal holdouts, Islamist terrorists, into an exhausting imperialist game of invasion and whack-a-mole, exposing in the process America’s worst vulnerabilities on the ground and in the air. Then Bush did commensurate damage to the U.S. economy, ending in the Wall Street crash and Great Recession. China, meanwhile, rose and spread its monied influence across the world, Vladimir Putin preened and plotted, and the Viktor Orbans, Narendra Modis, and Jair Bolsonaros went their own ways. And Americans, disgusted with how badly they’d been misled, responded first by electing a freshman senator (Barack Obama) who rose to prominence by calling Iraq a “dumb war” and who then vacillated for eight years over U.S. involvement overseas and finally by embracing America First populism.
All this brings us directly back to Kissinger, the great realist Hans Morgenthau (who was his mentor), and the fierce geopolitical urgency of now. Global anarchy beckons, and proliferating great-power rivalries demand savvy, hardheaded strategic diplomacy of the kind that Morgenthau conceived in theory and Kissinger mastered in practice. This appears to be the main message of Gewen’s book, which demands to be studied, especially at a moment when Sinophobia is surging and Beijing is giving back as good as it gets. For China today, Gewen writes, is “the Apatosaurus in the room.”
Kissinger in 1969 (left) and 1963 (right) and with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho during peace talks on the Vietnam War in Paris on Jan. 24, 1973.
The answer to the future of U.S.-China relations—and the global peace and stability that largely depend on getting them right—may lie in the past, Gewen suggests. It’s no small coincidence that Kissinger and his philosophy had their moment in the sun at a time of U.S. weakness, during the Vietnam War, civil unrest, Watergate, and the stagflation of the 1970s, when diplomats had to find common ground and a balance among the major powers. Because a weakened and disordered Washington may be in an analogous place today vis-à-vis China, Kissinger’s favorite subject and the focus of his greatest diplomatic triumphs. In particular, Washington needs a reversion to tried and tested realpolitik that will be deft enough to turn great-power rivalry into a stable and peaceable modus vivendi. As former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, a scholar of China who has watched Beijing’s rise up close, wrote in a recent essay about the coronavirus pandemic in Foreign Affairs: “The uncomfortable truth is that China and the United States are both likely to emerge from this crisis significantly diminished. Neither a new Pax Sinica nor a renewed Pax Americana will rise from the ruins. Rather, both powers will be weakened, at home and abroad. And the result will be a continued slow but steady drift toward international anarchy.”
Yet it is just this likelihood of mutual weakness between the two great world powers that may provide a way out. The answer begins by recognizing and accepting what we face today—which is a permanently gray world. This is hard to accept for Americans, who for several generations since World War II and in the triumphalist aftermath of the Cold War have grown used to unquestioned world dominance. But it is largely this chaotic 21st-century world that Morgenthau, though largely forgotten now except in academia, presciently described in the ur-text of modern realism more than 70 years ago, Politics Among Nations, and which Kissinger expanded on in his diplomatic career, as Gewen brilliantly documents in his book. Morgenthau anticipated the present breakdown in the belief about the progress of human society when he said that the rationalists who pined for perfection in human governance and society denied the “inevitability of tragedy,” to pick up Gewen’s main theme. That is what every great statesman has known—that the “choices he faced were not between good and evil … but between bad and less bad,” writes Gewen, a longtime editor at the New York Times Book Review (who, full disclosure, has occasionally assigned me reviews). This describes much of Kissinger’s career, including the opening to China, the 1973 truce in the Middle East, even the chaotic and bloody end to the Vietnam War and the thousands of lives lost Kissinger must have on his conscience.
Kissinger’s ideas have more resonance now because we are clearly in a place similar to the American weakness in the ’70s, when foreign-policy elites weren’t thinking of triumph but just survival.
Kissinger, it is true, is not an easy man to restore to good public opinion, as Gewen notes in considerable detail. Kissinger and Richard Nixon oversaw the brutal campaign to force Hanoi to the table, dropping more bombs on Cambodia than all the bombs Allies dropped in World War II, ultimately leading to hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths; that policy, along with their indifference to the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh and apparent support of the coup in Chile, helped provoke a generation of prominent liberals from Seymour Hersh to Christopher Hitchens to label Kissinger a paranoiac and a war criminal. There was always a duplicity about his beliefs and shrouding of his motives—he knew that Americans weren’t going to fight to, in his words, “preserve the balance of power.” (Gewen notes that Kissinger had concluded as early as 1965, after a visit, that Vietnam was unwinnable but still supported the war.) Gewen tries to place Kissinger in the lineage of German Jewish thinkers who escaped the Holocaust and were haunted by the failures of Weimar democracy, along with Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt—though he’s not entirely persuasive here, given that some of Strauss’s often-obscure ideas later inspired the neocons and another such European refugee from Hitler, Madeleine Albright (nee Korbel), ended up a passionate hard-power Wilsonian.
But Kissinger’s ideas have more resonance now because we are clearly in a place similar to the American weakness in the ’70s, when foreign-policy elites weren’t thinking of triumph but just survival, as they should be now, especially when America’s internal problems are arguably as enervating as they were back then. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Gewen’s book is that after spending hundreds of pages delving into the biographical and historical sources of Kissinger’s nuanced, Hitler-haunted realism, the author doesn’t apply it much to the present—and only fleetingly to China. Because there is no greater vindication of Kissingerian realism than what has happened in China during the first decades of the 21st century. After a quarter century in which it became fashionable in Washington to think that co-opting China into the post-Cold War system of global markets and emerging democracies would gradually nudge that country toward Enlightenment norms—what Kissinger once archly called “the age-old American dream of a peace achieved by the conversion of the adversary” —such illusions have faded away. All we have left is an emerging superpower that fits Kissinger’s hardheaded view of a country he visited some 100 times, dating back to his first talks with Mao Zedong. And if Kissinger’s analysis is correct—as it probably is—the United States and China can find accommodation if they work at it, with preaching kept to a minimum.
Kissinger accepts food from Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai during a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 10, 1973.
What the post-Cold War triumphalists didn’t understand, Gewen writes, is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union we confronted “a world without ideology, in which transcendent prescriptions for democracy were no answers to the problems at hand.”
Indeed, it has become far worse than that. We should frankly confront the postmodern reality that all hopes for the perfectibility of society and governance have fallen short; there is no longer any Great Cause to launch a revolution over. Thomas Jefferson’s “ball of liberty,” which Americans once expected to roll unfailingly across the globe, has ended up in a gutter. The recent Nations in Transit report from Freedom House documents a “stunning democratic breakdown”—in particular pointing to failures in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, saying that there are “fewer democracies in the region today than at any point since the annual report was launched in 1995.” History will trundle on, weak Afghan-like states will continue to fail, and democracies and autocracies like the United States and China will remain in contention with each other. But no one should delude themselves any longer that this clash of wills will yield some Great Teleological Outcome—a resolution in favor of one form of social and political organization over another.
As a result, as Kissinger once explained, “Almost every situation is a special case.” The new rise of nationalism, he wrote, might seek “national or regional identity by confronting the United States.” This is what Xi’s China has done. Indeed, many of today’s nationalists are responding to Washington as the Soviets once did, consolidating national control by playing up the threat from foreign enemies. And neonationalism across the globe should be dealt with in the same jujitsu manner George Kennan recommended against the Soviet Union: Reduce the perceived threat from the United States, and authoritarian systems like China’s are more likely to wither on their own. (Even now Xi may be facing a serious internal challenge; Rudd, in his Foreign Affairs essay, writes that Xi’s coronavirus response “has opened up significant political dissension within the Chinese Communist Party, even prompting thinly veiled criticism” of his “highly centralized leadership style.”) As Gewen notes, Kissinger observed in his 2011 book, On China, that even Mao, the Marxist revolutionary responsible for the deaths of millions of Chinese, was no ideologue like Lenin but a “China-first” nationalist and represented a country that had its own sense of exceptionalist insularity—like the United States—but unlike the Americans the Chinese regime saw little need for missionary zeal and proselytizing abroad. China today is buying influence everywhere. But creating so-called debt colonies around the globe is a lot less threatening than outright conquest.
The key is not to overreact. And the choice is stark for both countries, Gewen writes. “One way or another, either through an intellectual evolution that accepts limits and diplomatic compromise or through the wholesale shedding of blood, they will have to give up their cherished exceptionalism for a Westphalian system of international diversity and a more modest, if uncomfortable, equilibrium.” Moreover, Washington and Beijing will need to bring in other major world powers to accept this new balance of power.
In particular, Kissinger—perhaps the most profound student of the centurylong peace that began with the Congress of Vienna and ended in August 1914—worries about the pre-World War I descent into aggression, an especially scary prospect in a nuclear age.
Kissinger anticipated much of this outcome, Gewen writes. Decades ago he foresaw that the Reagan era and the Cold War’s end would not prove a new beginning for American-style liberal democratic capitalism, as the neocons believed and liberal internationalists hoped, but was more “in the nature of a brilliant sunset.” While Kissinger conceded, as always, that Wilsonian idealism would continue to define the heart of U.S. foreign policy, he wrote that even in the triumph of the Cold War—which he admits was partly won by the primacy of human rights in the debate (especially its role inside the Soviet bloc)—U.S. leaders would have to articulate a new balance of power “to preserve equilibrium in several regions of the world, and these partners can not always be chosen on the basis of moral considerations alone.”
China too is engaged today in a self-searching debate about how far it can go in global dominance, and the country’s long history of geopolitical caution (in deed if not always in word) is encouraging. Amid all this self-doubt and mutual probing of “limits”—one of Kissinger’s favorite words—lies the possibility of common ground, even if the two economies decouple in terms of supply chains and financial codependence. For without smart, aggressive diplomacy to find a new balance of power, there is the possibility of a catastrophic, even world-ending misstep. In particular, Kissinger—perhaps the most profound student of the centurylong peace that began with the Congress of Vienna and ended in August 1914—worries about the pre-World War I descent into aggression, an especially scary prospect in a nuclear age. Like many in Washington and Beijing today, Europe’s leaders back then blithely thought “risk taking was an effective diplomatic tool,” Kissinger wrote.
Now Beijing is lining up armies of bots and billions of dollars against U.S. democracy, and many in Washington are recklessly calling for a new cold war to confront “the imperialists in Beijing” who are “a menace to all free peoples,” in the words of Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, a rising star in the Republican Party. First task of this dangerous new agenda: withdraw from the WTO, under which China has “bent and abused and broken the rules of the international economic system to its own benefit” and cost 3 million American jobs, Hawley said in a May 20 speech.
The stakes for solving the issues between Washington and Beijing are hard for Americans to digest but in their essentials fairly simple: The two sides need to agree to disagree about certain fundamental beliefs, Kissinger says. The Americans will never give up their commitment to human rights and personal freedom, and the Chinese will never stop being mostly focused on maintaining stability in their vast populace, thus giving short shrift to human rights and freedom. On moral and cultural grounds, this is an irreconcilable stalemate. On economic grounds too, there is only the prospect of diplomatic compromise. China has flagrantly stolen U.S. intellectual property and exploited open U.S. markets by flooding them with state-subsidized cheap products—another great failure of the George W. Bush administration was neglecting to invoke WTO “anti-surge” rules to blunt this—and Trump’s trade war has made no headway against such practices. The way forward? Muddle through. Or, as Kissinger put it, find a “pragmatic concept of coexistence” not unlike Cold War-era detente, when a Vietnam-embogged and stagflation-encumbered America was also in no shape to conduct ideological crusades and instead got into bed with Beijing while negotiating arms restraint with Moscow. Keep the pressure on diplomatically but fudge the fundamental issues, as smart diplomats have always done. Because the alternative—constant conflict and war in the South China Sea that could potentially go nuclear—is unthinkable. “Ambiguity,” Kissinger said, “is sometimes the lifeblood of diplomacy.”
Another issue that both Kissinger and Morgenthau foresaw is that the more populist democracy becomes, the less able it is to conduct reliable foreign policy. Morgenthau, who later broke with Kissinger over his opposition to the Vietnam War, especially saw the effect popular democracy would have on professional diplomacy—an impact that is all too apparent in the Trump administration but also affected the ever dithering Obama and Bush administrations. Kissinger picked up this theme in his 2001 book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy?, and in a 2018 article in the Atlantic that Gewen describes as his “final lesson as a self-appointed educator of the American public.” In the growth of cyberspace, Kissinger perceived a “growing anarchy, which he equated with a Hobbesian state of nature in which the prospect of world order receded ever further from view … and in his mind the computerization of the world encouraged a kind of irresponsible thinking that was deleterious to rational judgment at best, disastrous at worst.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz pushes away protesters shouting "Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes" as Kissinger watches prior to the two testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington on Jan. 29, 2015.
In making this assessment, Gewen writes, Kissinger revealed a side of himself that his many detractors would find hard to believe: Kissinger the humanist. The algorithms and amassing of data in cyberspace—some of it sound, much of it not—threatened to undermine or even destroy good common sense. “[T]he successful conduct of foreign policy demands, above all, the intuitive ability to sense the future and thereby to master it,” Kissinger argued. Anticipating future pitfalls, and relying more on pragmatic common sense than providence, is something Americans have to keep relearning. Even the deistic Founders saw Providence on their side, and later American leaders like Ronald Reagan believed themselves to be doing the will of God. Kissinger admired Reagan for his principled stand against the Soviets, but he also ironically referred back to a quote from the proto-realist he so admired, Otto von Bismarck, who said, “The best a statesman can do is to listen to the footsteps of God, get hold of the hem of his cloak, and walk with Him a few steps of the way.” Kissinger appealed not to God but instead to a “metaphysical humility,” Gewen writes, “an understanding that mere humans would never know all they needed to know as they engaged in the dangerous game of international affairs.”
That lack of certainty sounds squishy, but what is worse is to be too hard and unyielding—in a word, arrogant. Hubris, a lack of humility, and an excess of moralizing led to the worst disasters in modern U.S. foreign-policy history, the invasions of Vietnam and Iraq. A close review of the debates leading up to Vietnam, which Gewen delivers in some detail, and the Iraq invasion reveals the lamentable extent of overconfidence among U.S. policymakers in the God-given righteousness of America’s cause. (The infamous phrase with which Bush made his final case for the Iraq invasion was, “The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.”) Did Reagan win the Cold War, as many conservatives believe? Even Kissinger has acknowledged that Reagan’s confrontational approach, as opposed to detente, “had much to recommend it.” But mainly Reagan was lucky; he was the man who was in the room when 40 years of strategic patience—the policy of containment—paid off. (Reagan himself must have known how lucky he was, since he was still desperately trying to negotiate arms reduction with Moscow, much to the consternation of the hard-liners in his own second term, even as the Soviet system was collapsing internally.) Kissinger himself foresaw as well as anyone that slow and steady would eventually win the Cold War race, and even Kennan, the father of containment, once remarked that Kissinger “understands my views better than anyone at [the State Department] ever has.”
In the end, the choice in front of us is not as difficult as we may think. Kissinger lamented Wilsonianism’s excesses but conceded that it still formed the bedrock of American foreign policy. And a consensus is possible if the Wilsonians accept that American sovereignty and hard power will always be sacrosanct and the America Firsters accept that the liberal international order the United States created, flawed as it is, will remain far more a protector than an antagonist, not least because it has gained majority consensus in the world and helps take the raw edge off Washington’s still dominant military power, preventing would-be rivals like Beijing and Moscow from forming alternative power blocs. Striving openly for U.S. hegemony just won’t work, Kissinger has written, because no international order can survive if it isn’t viewed as just: “The dominant trend in American foreign policy thinking must be to transform power into consensus so that the international order is based on agreement rather than reluctant acquiescence.” Ragged though its dominance is, the United States, as chief author of this international order, still has the upper hand here. Or as Kissinger wrote: “Our goal should be to build a moral consensus which can make a pluralistic world creative rather than destructive.” The task is all the greater today.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-08--U.S. Protests Have Ignited a Worldwide Call for Justice

U.S .
Protests Have Ignited a Worldwide Call for Justice Here is today ’ s Foreign Policy brief : U.S. protests show first signs of policy response , India and China signal a cooling of tensions over border , Brazil stops publishing some coronavirus figures , and the world this week .
We welcome your feedback at morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .
Over the weekend , protests continued across the world against racism and police violence .
In the country where the protests began , local policymakers are beginning to respond .
In Washington , D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s June 1 church photo op “ Black Lives Matter Plaza ” and commissioned artists to spell out “ Black Lives Matter ” on the street in bright yellow letters that span more than a city block in length .
On Saturday , the city saw its largest protests yet , with no sign of the heavy security presence in place from earlier in the week .
In a sign of battles to come , protestors added their own message to the mayor by painting “ Defund the police ” alongside the earlier @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heard in New York by Mayor Bill de Blasio , who has pledged to cut the city ’ s police budget—currently $ 6 billion—in response to constituent pressure .
He has not said how by much he would reduce the police budget , which is more than 6 percent of the city ’ s total budget .
A place to start may be counterterrorism spending , as Jake Bittle wrote in Foreign Policy last week .
“ The NYPD spent around $ 187 million on counterterrorism operations last year , compared to $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Given the rarity of actual terrorist incidents—even in New York—the additional manpower and high-tech equipment are deployed to monitor political groups and protesters who have no intention of committing illegal activity , ” he writes .
Cutting funding is one thing , but Minneapolis—the Midwestern city that lit the spark of protest after the death of George Floyd—is going further : Its city council has announced its intention to disband the Minneapolis Police Department ( MPD ) entirely .
“ Our commitment is to end our toxic relationship with MPD and to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe , ” City Council President Lisa Bender said .
Such a strategy was deployed by the city of Camden , New Jersey , in 2013 .
As the protests gather momentum globally , they have become a means to highlight domestic instances of racism and police violence : In Brazil , the case of João Pedro Matos Pinto , a black 14-year-old shot dead by police in a Rio de Janeiro suburb in a case of mistaken identity , has electrified Brazil and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a scale not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic .
It has also shined a light on the Rio police force : 1,814 people were killed by Rio police in 2019 , and 606 have been killed in the first quarter of 2020 .
In Japan , protestors took to the streets of Tokyo and Osaka over the weekend to protest racism , both at home and abroad .
A video of a Kurdish man being shoved to the ground by Tokyo police officers has spurred hundreds to the streets .
A protest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prompted protest in Tokyo on May 30 , and one person was arrested .
“ We all know what ’ s happening in the U.S. , ” Nami Nanami , 28 , told The Japan Times .
“ The same thing is happening in Japan but nobody is talking about it.
” In Bristol , an English city on the border with Wales , protestors took their frustration out by tearing down a statue of Edward Colston , a 17th-century British slave trader .
The removal mirrored similar actions in the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one exception : When protestors successfully toppled the statue , they then rolled it down the street and unceremoniously disposed of it in a nearby river .
Where do we go from here ?
Writing in Foreign Policy on June 6 , Stephen M. Walt admits that knowing what comes next is impossible , but he does take a shot .
“ My guess is that the level of anger is going to get worse between now and November—especially in the nation ’ s cities—and it will expand beyond the issue of racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China-India border .
Tensions between India and China over a border dispute appear to be easing after a meeting between military leaders from both countries on Saturday .
“ Both sides agreed to peacefully resolve the situation in the border areas in accordance with various bilateral agreements and keeping in view the agreements between the leaders that peace and tranquillity in the India-China border regions is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations , ” a statement from India ’ s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday .
Chinese and Indian forces clashed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wider conflict between the world ’ s most populous countries .
Brazil nixes coronavirus figures .
Over the weekend , Brazilian authorities removed online data about the country ’ s coronavirus epidemic , including key figures such as total cases and the overall death toll .
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro , who local media report ordered the data removed , said the change was necessary because the previous reporting did “ not reflect the moment the country is in.
” Only new daily cases and deaths are now shown on the government ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Brazilians concerned about a shift toward authoritarianism .
“ Attempts are made to hide the numbers in COVID-19 to reduce or control health policies .
The trick will not remove responsibility for the eventual genocide , ” Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes tweeted .
New statistical study questions basis for Morales removal .
A new study by independent researchers , and reviewed by the New York Times , has thrown the reasoning behind the ouster of former Bolivian President Evo Morales into doubt .
Researchers were unable to find the same irregularities in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ American States ( OAS ) to declare the elections of October 2019 rigged .
“ We took a hard look at the OAS ’ s statistical evidence and found problems with their methods , ” Francisco Rodríguez , one of the researchers , told the Times .
“ Once we correct those problems , the OAS ’ s results go away , leaving no statistical evidence of fraud.
” OAS officials have backed their initial assessment .
“ Statistics don ’ t prove or disprove fraud .
Hard evidence like falsified statements of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that is what we found , ” said Gerardo De Icaza , the OAS head of electoral observations .
Since Morales—the country ’ s first indigenous president—fled Bolivia , the country has been under the control of interim President Jeanine Añez Chavez , a Bolivian of European heritage .
Although Añez promised swift elections after assuming the role in November , she has held on to power for the past seven months .
More prisoner exchanges .
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that Iran is ready to continue prisoner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ week ’ s release of Michael White for Majid Taheru .
“ If the possibility of exchanging prisoners exists , we have the readiness to free the rest of the individuals who are imprisoned in America and return them to the country , ” Mousavi said .
Japan not condemning Hong Kong move .
Japan will not join the United States , United Kingdom and Australia in a statement condemning China ’ s imposition of a new national security law on Hong Kong , according to the Kyodo news agency .
Tokyo has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law on May 28 , saying it was “ seriously concerned.
” Russia confronts a warming country .
Russia ’ s Prosecutor-General ’ s Office has ordered a review of all hazardous materials held on permafrost in the wake of last week ’ s collapse of a diesel tank in Siberia that caused one of the worst fuel spills in recent history .
Rising temperatures in Siberia have begun to melt the region ’ s permafrost , and temperatures in May were up to 10 degrees Celsius above average .
On Tuesday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran Brian Hook will address the Heritage Foundation .
He is expected to discuss the U.S. campaign to continue a United Nations Security Council backed arms embargo on Iran imposed as part of the Iran nuclear deal .
The embargo is set to expire in October .
On Wednesday , June 10 , the U.S. Federal Reserve will release its decision on whether to raise , lower , or maintain interest rates , followed by a press conference with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell .
Also on Wednesday , the chief foreign affairs representative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , will hold talks with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz , with Israel ’ s planned annexation of the West Bank high on the agenda .
The U.S. Department of Defense is prepared for an insurrection by U.S. youth , if the time comes .
The revelation came after The Intercept published information obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request about 2018 Joint Land , Air and Sea Strategic Special Program , a war game conducted by the U.S. military ’ s war colleges .
Dubbed “ Zbellion ” the scenario involves @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after 1996 ) —described as “ among the least likely to believe there is such a thing as the ‘ American Dream , ’ and that the ‘ system is rigged ’ against them ” —engaging in cyberattacks and promoting anarchy across the world .
For more from FP , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here , or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips , comments , questions , or corrections to morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: U.S. protests against brutality see the first signs of a policy response, India and China signal a cooling of tensions over their border, Brazil stops publishing some coronavirus figures, and what to watch in the world this week .
Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: U.S. protests against brutality see the first signs of a policy response, India and China signal a cooling of tensions over their border, Brazil stops publishing some coronavirus figures, and what to watch in the world this week.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
Policymakers Begin To Respond As Protests Go Global
Over the weekend, protests continued across the world against racism and police violence. In the country where the protests began, local policymakers are beginning to respond.
In Washington, Mayor Muriel Bowser renamed the site of U.S. President Donald Trump’s June 1 church photo op “Black Lives Matter Plaza” and commissioned artists to spell out “Black Lives Matter” on the street in bright yellow letters that span more than a city block in length. On Saturday, the city saw its largest protests yet, with no sign of the heavy security presence in place from earlier in the week. In a sign of battles to come, protestors added their own message to the mayor by painting “Defund the police” alongside the earlier painted slogan.
That call has been heard in New York by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has pledged to cut the city’s police budget—currently $6 billion—in response to constituent pressure. He has not said how by much he would reduce the police budget, which is more than 6 percent of the city’s total budget.
A place to start may be counterterrorism spending, as Jake Bittle wrote in Foreign Policy last week. “The NYPD spent around $187 million on counterterrorism operations last year, compared to $116 million on officer training last year. Given the rarity of actual terrorist incidents—even in New York—the additional manpower and high-tech equipment are deployed to monitor political groups and protesters who have no intention of committing illegal activity,” he writes.
Cutting funding is one thing, but Minneapolis—the Midwestern city that lit the spark of protest after the death of George Floyd—is going further: Its city council has announced its intention to disband the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) entirely. “Our commitment is to end our toxic relationship with MPD and to end policing as we know it to recreate systems of public safety that actually keep us safe,” City Council President Lisa Bender said. Such a strategy was deployed by the city of Camden, New Jersey, in 2013.
As the protests gather momentum globally, they have become a means to highlight domestic instances of racism and police violence:
In Brazil, the case of João Pedro Matos Pinto, a black 14-year-old shot dead by police in a Rio de Janeiro suburb in a case of mistaken identity, has electrified Brazil and led to mass protests on Sunday of a scale not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic. It has also shined a light on the Rio police force: 1,814 people were killed by Rio police in 2019, and 606 have been killed in the first quarter of 2020.
In Japan, protestors took to the streets of Tokyo and Osaka over the weekend to protest racism, both at home and abroad. A video of a Kurdish man being shoved to the ground by Tokyo police officers has spurred hundreds to the streets. A protest over the man’s treatment already prompted protest in Tokyo on May 30, and one person was arrested. “We all know what’s happening in the U.S.,” Nami Nanami, 28, told The Japan Times. “The same thing is happening in Japan but nobody is talking about it.”
In Bristol, an English city on the border with Wales, protestors took their frustration out by tearing down a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th-century British slave trader. The removal mirrored similar actions in the United States over statues of Confederate generals, with one exception: When protestors successfully toppled the statue, they then rolled it down the street and unceremoniously disposed of it in a nearby river.
Where do we go from here? Writing in Foreign Policy on June 6, Stephen M. Walt admits that knowing what comes next is impossible, but he does take a shot. “My guess is that the level of anger is going to get worse between now and November—especially in the nation’s cities—and it will expand beyond the issue of racial injustice,” he writes.
What We’re Following Today Powell backs Biden. Colin Powell is throwing his weight behind Joe Biden in his presidential bid, telling CNN in a rare public interview that Trump “lies all the time” and has “drifted away” from the constitution. Powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of state under George W. Bush, is the latest former senior military commander and high-profile GOP figure to denounce the president ahead of the 2020 elections. Trump fired back on Twitter, calling Powell “a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East wars.” Powell’s endorsement was welcomed with open arms by Biden’s camp as a showing of bipartisan support, but most political analysts agree it is unlikely to sway the minds of Trump’s ardent supporters.
The China-India border. Tensions between India and China over a border dispute appear to be easing after a meeting between military leaders from both countries on Saturday. “Both sides agreed to peacefully resolve the situation in the border areas in accordance with various bilateral agreements and keeping in view the agreements between the leaders that peace and tranquillity in the India-China border regions is essential for the overall development of bilateral relations,” a statement from India’s Foreign Ministry said on Sunday. Chinese and Indian forces clashed in May, prompting fears over a wider conflict between the world’s most populous countries.
Brazil nixes coronavirus figures. Over the weekend, Brazilian authorities removed online data about the country’s coronavirus epidemic, including key figures such as total cases and the overall death toll. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who local media report ordered the data removed, said the change was necessary because the previous reporting did “not reflect the moment the country is in.” Only new daily cases and deaths are now shown on the government’s official website.
The move has Brazilians concerned about a shift toward authoritarianism. “Attempts are made to hide the numbers in COVID-19 to reduce or control health policies. The trick will not remove responsibility for the eventual genocide,” Supreme Court justice Gilmar Mendes tweeted.
New statistical study questions basis for Morales removal. A new study by independent researchers, and reviewed by the New York Times, has thrown the reasoning behind the ouster of former Bolivian President Evo Morales into doubt. Researchers were unable to find the same irregularities in voting data that caused the Organization of American States (OAS) to declare the elections of October 2019 rigged. “We took a hard look at the OAS’s statistical evidence and found problems with their methods,” Francisco Rodríguez, one of the researchers, told the Times. “Once we correct those problems, the OAS’s results go away, leaving no statistical evidence of fraud.”
OAS officials have backed their initial assessment. “Statistics don’t prove or disprove fraud. Hard evidence like falsified statements of polls and hidden I.T. structures do. And that is what we found,” said Gerardo De Icaza, the OAS head of electoral observations. Since Morales—the country’s first indigenous president—fled Bolivia, the country has been under the control of interim President Jeanine Añez Chavez, a Bolivian of European heritage. Although Añez promised swift elections after assuming the role in November, she has held on to power for the past seven months.
Keep an Eye On
More prisoner exchanges. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said that Iran is ready to continue prisoner exchanges with the United States after last week’s release of Michael White for Majid Taheru. “If the possibility of exchanging prisoners exists, we have the readiness to free the rest of the individuals who are imprisoned in America and return them to the country,” Mousavi said.
Japan not condemning Hong Kong move. Japan will not join the United States, United Kingdom and Australia in a statement condemning China’s imposition of a new national security law on Hong Kong, according to the Kyodo news agency. Tokyo has issued its own statement about the proposed law on May 28, saying it was “seriously concerned.”
Russia confronts a warming country. Russia’s Prosecutor-General’s Office has ordered a review of all hazardous materials held on permafrost in the wake of last week’s collapse of a diesel tank in Siberia that caused one of the worst fuel spills in recent history. Rising temperatures in Siberia have begun to melt the region’s permafrost, and temperatures in May were up to 10 degrees Celsius above average.
The World This Week
On Tuesday, June 9, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook will address the Heritage Foundation. He is expected to discuss the U.S. campaign to continue a United Nations Security Council backed arms embargo on Iran imposed as part of the Iran nuclear deal. The embargo is set to expire in October.
On Wednesday, June 10, the U.S. Federal Reserve will release its decision on whether to raise, lower, or maintain interest rates, followed by a press conference with Fed Chairman Jerome Powell.
Also on Wednesday, the chief foreign affairs representative of the European Union, Josep Borell, will hold talks with Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, with Israel’s planned annexation of the West Bank high on the agenda.
Odds and Ends
The U.S. Department of Defense is prepared for an insurrection by U.S. youth, if the time comes. The revelation came after The Intercept published information obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request about 2018 Joint Land, Air and Sea Strategic Special Program, a war game conducted by the U.S. military’s war colleges. Dubbed “Zbellion” the scenario involves members of generation Z (those born after 1996)—described as “among the least likely to believe there is such a thing as the ‘American Dream,’ and that the ‘system is rigged’ against them”—engaging in cyberattacks and promoting anarchy across the world.
That’s it for today.
For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.
Robbie Gramer contributed to this report.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-08--Stop Calling Israel a Jewish Democracy

Stop Calling Israel a Jewish Democracy

As Israel contemplates annexing large parts of the West Bank , in harmony with U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s so-called peace plan , some troubling interpretations of Israel ’ s identity as a Jewish state , and its relationship to democracy , have come to the fore .
These views of Israel ’ s Jewish identity do not only concern Palestinians in the occupied West Bank , but also the approximately 20 percent of Israeli citizens who identify as Arab or Palestinian .
Now there is a U.S. plan proposing not only annexing occupied territories , but also carving @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the Palestinian Authority , just because their Israeli inhabitants aren ’ t Jewish .
One of the architects of Trump ’ s plan , U.S .
Ambassador David Friedman , has frequently invoked biblical narratives to support claims of Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian lands—essentially allowing an interpretation of Jewish scripture to supersede international law and fundamental Palestinian rights .
Even the New York Times has hosted contributors such as Daniel Pipes proclaiming Israeli Arab citizens are the “ ultimate enemy of Israel ’ s status as a Jewish state.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not the one that most Americans mean when they say they support Israel as a Jewish state—and not one they would embrace , polls show .
These developments are deeply troubling but not altogether disconnected ; they have been partly enabled by the discourse about Israel ’ s Jewishness and democracy among U.S. political elites that unwittingly posits non-Jewish Israelis as a demographic problem .
Public debate about Israel ’ s Jewishness and democracy among U.S. political elites unwittingly posits non-Jewish Israelis as a demographic problem .
Long before Trump became president , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taken for granted that Israel is a Jewish state whose Jewishness must be protected .
For most , the definition is qualified by insisting on Israel being both Jewish and democratic—something that the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel asserts .
This notion of a Jewish democracy has served to comfort liberal advocates of a Jewish state , who are not normally inclined to champion states defined by ethnic or religious nationalism ; the word democracy makes it all seem fine .
To be sure—Palestinians under occupation aside—Israeli citizens who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a long way since the first 18 years of Israel ’ s existence , when they were under military administration ; they now have rights as citizens under the law , vote and get elected , and have been more integrated into parts of the Israeli economy .
But their status has lagged far behind Jewish Israelis .
Beyond structural inequality and discriminatory treatment by successive governments , the issue at the core is one of their perceived illegitimacy , echoed by statements by the prime minister presenting them as a threat , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when Arab parties seem eager to join government , the Jewish mainstream finds it hard to accept them .
If being both Jewish and democratic were possible at all , Israel could presumably be defined as a national home “ of the Jewish people and of all its citizens ” equally .
But the fact is there has always , since 1948 , been a concession to Jewishness over democracy—by allowing Jews around the world to become Israeli citizens while denying others the same right , including Palestinians whose families left or were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it became an independent state .
Beyond this , Israel could presumably still be blind to religion and ethnicity .
But Israel has never been blind to the religion or ethnicity of its citizens—and since the passage of the 2018 “ nation-state ” law , it has even more boldly emphasized its Jewishness and downgraded everyone who ’ s not Jewish .
This law defines Israel as “ the nation state of the Jewish People ” and holds that “ the exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; it makes no mention of democracy or equality for others .
The law is anchored in pervasive Israeli Jewish public attitudes in favor of Jewishness over democracy .
A major 2014-2015 Pew study of 5,601 Israelis showed that 79 percent of Jewish Israelis say Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel .
By contrast , polling suggest that Americans strongly choose democracy over Jewishness in Israel .
For years , polls have shown that , in the absence of a two-state solution , about two-thirds of Americans , and more than three-quarters of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with full equality for its citizens—even if it means Israel may no longer be a Jewish-majority state—over a Jewish state without full equality for all its citizens .
In a way , this American ethos sums up the dilemma for political elites : They have made an axiomatic commitment to Israel ’ s Jewishness that few are prepared to challenge , while at the same time they believe themselves to be democracy advocates .
The commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians has been in part a psychological trick , as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ admit a one-state reality is to be forced to choose between Israel ’ s democracy and its Jewishness—and few want to be put in that position .
It ’ s much easier to present existing inequality in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as a temporary state of affairs , not as a permanent one requiring painful choices .
But in truth , U.S. public attitudes aside , the language of American political elites has emphasized Israel ’ s Jewishness , even when advocating for equitable and democratic outcomes .
A common argument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Israel would otherwise lose either its Jewishness or its democracy—emphasizes demography : If Israel annexes the West Bank , it would cease to be a Jewish-majority state , as Arabs could outnumber Jews ; to preserve its Jewish character , Israel would have to be nondemocratic .
Arabs are thus inadvertently posited as a demographic problem if not a potential threat .
Proclaiming that Israel ’ s Arab citizens are the “ ultimate enemy ” is but an extreme conclusion of demographic emphasis .
The United States often lives with realities it does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unprecedented to see Washington pushing such ideas and employing the assets of a superpower to implement them .
Indeed , one can imagine even more extreme measures , especially if violence escalates , including further expulsions of Palestinians ; the Pew study found that 48 percent of Israeli Jews favored expelling or “ transferring ” Arabs—a position that advocates of ethnic cleansing on the extreme Israeli right have long espoused .
It isn ’ t that Israel is the only state defining itself increasingly in ethnoreligious terms—the rise of Hindu hypernationalism in India @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state carrying out the world ’ s longest internationally acknowledged military occupation .
The United States often lives with realities it does not like .
But it ’ s unprecedented to see Washington pushing such ideas and employing the assets of a superpower to implement them .
The carelessly permissive U.S. discourse has opened an unintended path for the extreme conclusions now appearing everywhere from the White House to op-ed pages .
Trumpism is a passing moment that the United States will hopefully overcome .
But in confronting the moment , it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s subversion of U.S. power to undermine U.S. values ; the language used , and the justifications employed have consequences .
Opposition to policies must avoid troubling arguments about demographic threats and weak appeals to saving a nonexistent peace process ; they must be grounded in the principles of international law and norms , and in core American values .

As Israel contemplates annexing large parts of the West Bank, in harmony with U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan, some troubling interpretations of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, and its relationship to democracy, have come to the fore. These views of Israel’s Jewish identity do not only concern Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, but also the approximately 20 percent of Israeli citizens who identify as Arab or Palestinian. Now there is a U.S. plan proposing not only annexing occupied territories, but also carving out towns in Israel to hand over to the Palestinian Authority , just because their Israeli inhabitants aren’t Jewish.
As Israel contemplates annexing large parts of the West Bank, in harmony with U.S. President Donald Trump’s so-called peace plan, some troubling interpretations of Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, and its relationship to democracy, have come to the fore. These views of Israel’s Jewish identity do not only concern Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, but also the approximately 20 percent of Israeli citizens who identify as Arab or Palestinian. Now there is a U.S. plan proposing not only annexing occupied territories, but also carving out towns in Israel to hand over to the Palestinian Authority, just because their Israeli inhabitants aren’t Jewish.
One of the architects of Trump’s plan, U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, has frequently invoked biblical narratives to support claims of Israeli sovereignty over occupied Palestinian lands—essentially allowing an interpretation of Jewish scripture to supersede international law and fundamental Palestinian rights. Even the New York Times has hosted contributors such as Daniel Pipes proclaiming Israeli Arab citizens are the “ultimate enemy of Israel’s status as a Jewish state.”
The brand of Jewishness on display here is not the one that most Americans mean when they say they support Israel as a Jewish state—and not one they would embrace, polls show. These developments are deeply troubling but not altogether disconnected; they have been partly enabled by the discourse about Israel’s Jewishness and democracy among U.S. political elites that unwittingly posits non-Jewish Israelis as a demographic problem.
Public debate about Israel’s Jewishness and democracy among U.S. political elites unwittingly posits non-Jewish Israelis as a demographic problem.
Long before Trump became president, many U.S. liberals and conservatives alike have taken for granted that Israel is a Jewish state whose Jewishness must be protected. For most, the definition is qualified by insisting on Israel being both Jewish and democratic—something that the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel asserts.
This notion of a Jewish democracy has served to comfort liberal advocates of a Jewish state, who are not normally inclined to champion states defined by ethnic or religious nationalism; the word democracy makes it all seem fine.
To be sure—Palestinians under occupation aside—Israeli citizens who identify as Arab or Palestinian have come a long way since the first 18 years of Israel’s existence, when they were under military administration; they now have rights as citizens under the law, vote and get elected, and have been more integrated into parts of the Israeli economy. But their status has lagged far behind Jewish Israelis.
Beyond structural inequality and discriminatory treatment by successive governments, the issue at the core is one of their perceived illegitimacy, echoed by statements by the prime minister presenting them as a threat, and by the fact that, even when Arab parties seem eager to join government, the Jewish mainstream finds it hard to accept them.
If being both Jewish and democratic were possible at all, Israel could presumably be defined as a national home “of the Jewish people and of all its citizens” equally. But the fact is there has always, since 1948, been a concession to Jewishness over democracy—by allowing Jews around the world to become Israeli citizens while denying others the same right, including Palestinians whose families left or were expelled from what is now Israel before it became an independent state. Beyond this, Israel could presumably still be blind to religion and ethnicity.
But Israel has never been blind to the religion or ethnicity of its citizens—and since the passage of the 2018 “nation-state” law, it has even more boldly emphasized its Jewishness and downgraded everyone who’s not Jewish. This law defines Israel as “the nation state of the Jewish People” and holds that “the exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People”; it makes no mention of democracy or equality for others.
The law is anchored in pervasive Israeli Jewish public attitudes in favor of Jewishness over democracy. A major 2014-2015 Pew study of 5,601 Israelis showed that 79 percent of Jewish Israelis say Jews deserve preferential treatment in Israel.
By contrast, polling suggest that Americans strongly choose democracy over Jewishness in Israel. For years, polls have shown that, in the absence of a two-state solution, about two-thirds of Americans, and more than three-quarters of Democrats, would choose a democratic Israel with full equality for its citizens—even if it means Israel may no longer be a Jewish-majority state—over a Jewish state without full equality for all its citizens.
In a way, this American ethos sums up the dilemma for political elites: They have made an axiomatic commitment to Israel’s Jewishness that few are prepared to challenge, while at the same time they believe themselves to be democracy advocates.
The commitment to a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians has been in part a psychological trick, as its prospects have visibly diminished. To admit a one-state reality is to be forced to choose between Israel’s democracy and its Jewishness—and few want to be put in that position. It’s much easier to present existing inequality in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as a temporary state of affairs, not as a permanent one requiring painful choices.
But in truth, U.S. public attitudes aside, the language of American political elites has emphasized Israel’s Jewishness, even when advocating for equitable and democratic outcomes.
A common argument employed on behalf of a two-state solution—that Israel would otherwise lose either its Jewishness or its democracy—emphasizes demography: If Israel annexes the West Bank, it would cease to be a Jewish-majority state, as Arabs could outnumber Jews; to preserve its Jewish character, Israel would have to be nondemocratic. Arabs are thus inadvertently posited as a demographic problem if not a potential threat. Proclaiming that Israel’s Arab citizens are the “ultimate enemy” is but an extreme conclusion of demographic emphasis.
The United States often lives with realities it does not like. But it’s unprecedented to see Washington pushing such ideas and employing the assets of a superpower to implement them.
Indeed, one can imagine even more extreme measures, especially if violence escalates, including further expulsions of Palestinians; the Pew study found that 48 percent of Israeli Jews favored expelling or “transferring” Arabs—a position that advocates of ethnic cleansing on the extreme Israeli right have long espoused.
It isn’t that Israel is the only state defining itself increasingly in ethnoreligious terms—the rise of Hindu hypernationalism in India is just one example—although it is the state carrying out the world’s longest internationally acknowledged military occupation. The United States often lives with realities it does not like. But it’s unprecedented to see Washington pushing such ideas and employing the assets of a superpower to implement them. The carelessly permissive U.S. discourse has opened an unintended path for the extreme conclusions now appearing everywhere from the White House to op-ed pages.
Trumpism is a passing moment that the United States will hopefully overcome. But in confronting the moment, it’s not enough to oppose Trump’s subversion of U.S. power to undermine U.S. values; the language used, and the justifications employed have consequences. Opposition to policies must avoid troubling arguments about demographic threats and weak appeals to saving a nonexistent peace process; they must be grounded in the principles of international law and norms, and in core American values.