Political Philosophy of Kissinger

The thesis of the paper is that Kissinger's approach to foreign policy and politics generally is a flawed one, based on outmoded concepts about the world. Mazlish is particularly effective in presenting this view, writing that Kissinger's political philosophy is based on nineteenth century concepts of the world which no longer apply:

Henry Kissinger . . . has contributed to what I refer to as the 'Europeanization' of American foreign policy. One of the key elements in this transformation has been a ponderously conceptualized and updated version of the balance of power doctrines of the 19th Century . . . that Kissinger has studied so intently. . . The paradox is that Kissinger's world, and ours, has been irretrievably revolutionized at the very moment he sought to stabilize it in the old fashioned terms.

The concept of power that is the basis of Kissinger's balance of power approach

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the summits and Vietnam left him little time, partly by the fact that 1972 was an election year. . . . " Kissinger and Nixon were informed by intelligence sources that Egypt and Syria would launch a war against Israel in the latter half of 1973, but because Kissinger and Nixon believed that the Arabs were virtually controlled by the Soviets, and that the Soviets would not risk the gains of detente by allowing the Arabs to attack Israel, the American leaders discounted what turned out to be accurate intelligence reports. Again, then, the Kissinger political philosophy, based on the Cold War and on the desire for a balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union in all areas of foreign relations of any significance, failed to perceive accurately the reality of a critical situation. It should be noted that Watergate, the election, and Vietnam also preoccupied Kissinger and Nixon, adding to their failure to take action which would have prevented the 1973 war between the Arabs and Israel. Kissinger himself sought to obfuscate the failure of his political philosophy in dealing effectively with the Middle East situation. Brown agrees with Dallek that Kissinger's failure to perceive accurately the Middle Eas
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2548
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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