World Chaos and World Order: Conversations With Henry Kissinger
What follows is an extended transcript of several conversations on foreign policy I had with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, which formed the basis of a story in the December issue of The Atlantic. That story, along with an interview on Kissinger’s reaction to the surprise electoral victory of Donald Trump, can be found here. The transcript below has been condensed and edited for clarity.
On Trump
Jeffrey Goldberg: Give me your underlying view of Donald Trump on foreign policy.
Henry Kissinger: In public, he speaks with great assurance, but some of the proposals he has made most emphatically will encounter obstacles to implementation. Neither Congress nor Mexico is likely to fund the construction of his wall.
Goldberg: And Hillary Clinton?
Kissinger: We had a common friend in the late Oscar de la Renta and met occasionally at his house. As secretary, she occasionally asked for my views. I have enjoyed my conversations with her; I respect her intelligence and analytical power.
Goldberg: Who is the best politician you’ve ever watched?
Kissinger: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide, but never gained national traction.
Goldberg: Would Trump accelerate the U.S.’s decline? Would Hillary reverse this feeling of declinism, in part because she believes in a strong alliance system and the positive use of American power?
Kissinger: If Trump were to win, the shock might create an opportunity, but also a serious dislocation. The uncertainty of Clinton is whether the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party would permit her to carry out what she believes.
Goldberg: If [Trump] took American political analysts by surprise, it must have taken Chinese analysts by surprise.
Kissinger: I happened to be in China when it crystallized last April. And they reacted by having a discussion about “what is really going on.” What is he trying to do? What should they do in response? Since they have also paid attention to what Trump keeps saying about negotiations, they are reflecting about the possibility that, shocking as his behavior is, it might provide the occasion for a comprehensive discussion. Now, they seem to be motivated by a certain ambivalence.
Goldberg: Do you think Trump could bring about a globalized understanding of the relationship?
Kissinger: Trump has not put forward a worldview. He argues in a general way that he could solve the economic problems between China and the United States in a comprehensive deal, which would take care of our other problems. Could he, in fact, do that? It would require qualities different from those needed to win primaries and elections. I don’t feel that Trump has addressed the question of world order yet.
Goldberg: He doesn’t seem to have operating theories. There is no “Trump Doctrine.”
Kissinger: For a foreign policy operating along a continuum of American thought, what I have sketched is nearly impossible to define in a political campaign: to come to an understanding with the Chinese, I mean.
Goldberg: Everyone says the Chinese want Trump [to win] because Clinton has been hard-edged on their issues.
Kissinger: I don’t think they prefer Trump. As cautious strategists, they’re just thinking about how they’d deal with him if he was elected.
Goldberg: You don’t think they see him as an easy mark?
Kissinger: They don’t know what he is. I think the Chinese want to attempt a significant exploration of purpose between us and them regardless of who our president is. There’s no sense faking that because if they fool us and it doesn’t occur, they will have undermined confidence. That’s not a good outcome for them.
Goldberg: Come to the two candidates right now. Which one has the better understanding? If you want to endorse Hillary Clinton, feel free. If you want to endorse Donald Trump, take it somewhere else.
Kissinger: You wouldn’t publish that?
Goldberg: Of course I’d publish it! I’m a journalist. I’d be horrified, but I’d publish it.
Kissinger: I have not endorsed Trump and will not do so.
Goldberg: Since we last spoke, he’s said various things that must have made you go pale.
Kissinger: I disagree with several of Trump’s statements, but I do not historically participate in presidential campaigns. My view of my role is that together with like-minded men and women, I could help contribute to a bipartisan view of American engagement in the world for another period; I could do my part to overcome this really, in a way, awful period in which we are turning history into personal recriminations, depriving our political system of a serious debate. That’s what I think my best role is.
Goldberg: Donald Trump does not rise in your mind to the level of a person who is so clearly unqualified for the presidency that you should preemptively say, “this person cannot function in this job?” More and more Republicans are saying that, especially national security professionals.
Kissinger: I’ve decided I’m not going into the name-calling aspect of the campaign. I’m approaching 94; I will not play a role in the execution of day-to-day policy, but I can still aid our thinking about purposeful strategy compatible with our role in shaping the postwar world. Before the campaign, I said over the years friendly things about Hillary. They are on the record. I stand by them. In fact, my views have been on the record for decades, including a friendly attitude towards Hillary as a person.
Goldberg: Let me ask again: Is Donald Trump teachable?
Kissinger: Every first-term president has to learn something after he comes into office. Nobody can be completely ready for the inevitable crises. If Trump is elected, it is in the national interest to hope that he is teachable.
Goldberg: You know, there’s a chance he would govern as a pragmatic liberal Democrat.
Kissinger: He has said things that sound like it. He has also said many much more contrary things. I simply do not want to get into this sort of speculation. I don’t know Trump well. I intend to make my contribution to the national debate on substance. There is no point in trying to get me into the personal aspects of the campaign.
The Obama Doctrine
Goldberg: How would you define President Obama’s foreign-policy doctrine?
Kissinger: The Obama Doctrine described in your Atlantic article posits that America acted against its basic values in a number of places around the world, thereby maneuvering itself into an intractable position. Therefore, the argument goes, America contributes to the vindication of its values by withdrawing from regions where we can only make things worse. We must take care lest the Obama Doctrine become an essentially reactive and passive foreign policy.
Goldberg: The animating idea being, in your mind, that Obama’s doctrine is about protecting the world from America?
Kissinger: In my opinion, Obama seems to think of himself not as a part of a political process, but as sui generis, a unique phenomenon with a unique capacity. And his responsibility, as he defines it, is to keep the insensitive elements of America from unsettling the world. He is more concerned with short-term consequences turning into permanent obstacles. Another view of statesmanship might focus to a greater extent on shaping history rather than avoiding getting in its way.
Goldberg: As president, you get blamed far less for sins of omission than sins of commission.
Kissinger: That’s true. It’s harder to prove them. But you are blamed for disasters, no matter who caused them.
Goldberg: As a practitioner of diplomacy, how useful is it to go to other countries and make mea culpas about past American behavior? You’re a pragmatist. Surely it buys you something.
Kissinger: Foreign countries don’t judge us by the propensity of our president to traduce his own country on their soil. They assess such visits on the basis of the fulfillment of expectations more than the recasting of the past. In my view, presidential reassessment of history, should it occur, should generally be delivered to American audiences.
Goldberg: But what about the practical argument?
Kissinger: It has to be weighed against the impact on governmental procedures and personnel. Should every American public servant have to be worried about how his views will sound 40 years later in the hands of foreign governments? Is every foreign government entitled to a file verified by the U.S. government decades after an event?
Goldberg: Hillary Clinton is more like you than she is Obama. I say this because I think Hillary Clinton would say that the things we did in the Cold War were worth the demise of the Soviet Union, and it was worth the excesses, interventions, and so on. I just think she’s closer to your understanding of the world. Is that fair?
If you say
