The death of Henry Kissinger – and why we will never see his America again

It seems highly fitting, almost poetic, that Henry Kissinger, the man who for so long embodied US foreign policy, should have died at the age of 100 in the midst of a conflict that testifies in many ways to the waning of US diplomatic power.

The arc of Kissinger’s life – starting from service in the US army as a refugee from Nazi Germany, through his key role as US secretary of state in President Nixon’s opening to China, his contribution to the Paris talks that ended the Vietnam war, and his part in negotiating the resolution of the 1973 Yom Kippur war that established the first lasting peace between Israel and the surrounding Arab countries – tracked the rise of the United States as it became the dominant, and then the sole, superpower, against the background of the Cold War.

So dominant a figure did Kissinger become, through his speaking and writing, through the advice that presidents continued to solicit, and his sheer longevity, that it is hard to believe that his formal government career actually began after the Cuban missile crisis and ended in 1977, long before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union’s collapse. If he was not active in frontline diplomacy, however, his voice was still heard and his influence endured.

He had something to say about the war that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – two things, in fact. His first was to take a dim view of demands from Ukraine and some of its Western allies that it should join Nato, on the grounds that the growing ties between Nato and Ukraine since 2014 had contributed to the conflict. His second was to support Ukraine’s bid for membership, arguing that this was the only way Ukraine’s security could be guaranteed.

And last June, less than six months, as it turns out, before his death, he went to Beijing at the personal invitation of President Xi Jinping. In part, this could be presented as a belated recognition of the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s visit, for which Kissinger’s secret diplomacy opened the way. This was surely little more than a pretext, though, for Beijing to try to put out some feelers in the direction of the United States at a time of increasing rivalry and tension, where official diplomatic channels might seem to be failing.

Seen through the prism of today, and perhaps also from the longer perspective of history, Kissinger will go down as an arch-realist in foreign policy terms, an arch-realist, what is more, representing the country with the greatest and furthest-reaching power in the world, both military and economic.

It may be hard to appreciate now, but the opening to China represented a complete reversal of a US-China policy – or rather the lack of a China policy – that had not really changed since Mao Zedong’s communists took power in 1949. It was a dramatic move, born of a recognition that China would be a potentially greater threat as a closed country than it might be if a way could be found for talking that went beyond the profound ideological divide.

Kissinger’s periodic efforts to end the Vietnam war reflected a similar rationale, which was quite different from the highly ideological approach of the out-and-out cold warriors. His realism did not exclude the utility of proxy wars, such as were being fought in Central America and parts of Africa, and could invite charges of inconsistency, as US national interests – as seen from Washington – took precedence over the fight against communism at all costs.

This sort of realism subsequently found an echo in Ronald Reagan’s opening to Mikhail Gorbachev in Russia, with the replacement – almost overnight – of the designation of Russia as the “Evil Empire” with the catchphrase “Trust, but verify” approach to arms control and much else.

Underlying Kissinger’s realism in foreign policy was the importance he attached to understanding, or trying to find out, how the other side thought, and how the world looked from elsewhere. This, some would argue, is an aspect of the diplomatic art that has been lost to a degree since the US, and the West in general, emerged from the Cold War as victors. The Western way had won and communism had lost; the ideological duel, as it had been fought, was over.

This did not mean, however, that there was any new meeting of minds – or if there was, it was not for long. In so far as national interests had ever taken second place to competing ideologies, those national interests were now back – as is so clear from the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Until recently, however, less effort seemed to be invested in trying to understand those differences than there was when Kissinger’s influence was at its height. And realism is now just one school of foreign policy.

One possible reason might be the subsequent pre-eminence of cold warriors in US foreign policy. While Kissinger’s worldview had arguably been formed in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and reflected his German and Jewish heritage, those who succeeded him, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Madeleine Albright, were just that bit younger and with a background in what became known as the “captive nations” of central and Eastern Europe.

How far this has contributed to the highly negative perceptions of Russia in the US, even after the collapse of communism – and so to the difficulties of any US diplomatic opening to Russia – is hard to gauge, but it made for a very different approach from that of Kissinger, and those of his acolytes who argued for a better understanding of what the world looked like from Moscow.

An even greater difference between the years of Kissinger’s dominance and now, however, might be in the capacity, even the will, of the United States to shape the world very far from its borders. It is true that the US “lost” Vietnam; by then, however, it was dealing with China and the Soviet Union; great powers all, and with the Soviet collapse, the United States was without peer or challenge on the world stage. Even with retreats, if not actual defeats, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US remained pre-eminent.

Both the war in Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israelis – and Israel’s response – however, have called into question the reach and effectiveness of US power. It is not clear that the US is ready, or able, to take on Russia directly to bring about victory for Ukraine, and such will as exists may well start to flag in an election year. Nor has the US been able to rally many countries beyond the West to oppose Russia at international forums, such as the UN.

Something similar can be seen with Israel over Gaza, despite the vicious atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October. The US has had to cede its traditional diplomatic role to Qatar. The US writ no longer runs as it once did; China is moving to take a broader diplomatic role, and the countries of what has become known as the “global south” are challenging what they see as double standards on issues as far apart as Palestinian statehood and climate change.

It is with the world in this state of diplomatic flux that Henry Kissinger, the great global realist, has bowed out. And this leaves a question: is the US now less able to order the world because other countries, including China, are becoming more assertive, or could it be, in part at least, because the US has progressively lost its realistic diplomatic touch?