Kissinger's View of Diplomacy in the 21st Century

The subtitle of the book, Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century, is a more apt title for this book. What Kissinger argues for is a complete revamping of American foreign policy to ensure that the United States keeps its prominent and powerful place in international affairs in this post-Cold War century. Kissinger is highly critical of U.S. policy that reacts to one world crisis at a time instead of the development of a long-term diplomatic policy. Overall the book is lucid, well thought out, informative and well written, but it does reveal Kissinger's politically conservative, Republican bias.

The book is divided into seven parts, covering different areas of the world and issues such as globalization (he is all for this), and humanitarian intervention (he basically opposes this). In each chapter, Kissinger analyzes the challenges facing the United States, and explains what he believes U.S.

. . .
r calls for an emphasis on long term rather than short term policies, as well as increased American sensitivity toward its European partners. Latin American relations is the focus of Chapter 3, "The Western Hemisphere: The World of Democracies II." After discussing the history of Latin American countries from the American perspective, Kissinger concludes with an optimistic forecast for the future of such countries as Argentina, Columbia, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. He cites free trade as the "objective of all nations in the region" as well as a commitment to "universal education, and equal and efficient administration of justice" (p. 85). Given that he admits that in Latin America "the gap between the political and the economic worlds is flagrant" (p. 84), his optimism seems somewhat far-fetched. But Kissinger places a lot of hope in the success of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) between the United States, Mexico and Canada giving credit to President Bill Clinton for his vision in this matter, although he criticizes the ex-President throughout the book for his other policies and actions, and faults him for failing to include other Latin American countries in NAFTA, and even extend the agreement to Europe. Kissinger st
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Peace Prize, Israel Palestine, Western Gulf, Japan Korea, Justice Kissinger, Atlantic European, Fund IMF, Latin American, Chile Mexico, East Kissinger, foreign policy, latin american, america foreign policy, world democracies, cold war, western hemisphere, globalization positive, terrorist attack, middle east, latin american countries, american countries, free trade,
Approximate Word count = 1367
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Kissinger View of Diplomacy in the 21st Century