Diplomacy

April 4, 1994
Kissinger maintains that the United States cannot dominate the emerging new world order but should rely instead on a balance of power built on security pacts and economic alliances. In this magisterial political history, the former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State draws lessons from the statecraft of Richelieu, Napoleon, Bismarck and Metternich, then shrewdly reappraises the foreign policy blunders and the failures of moral nerve and vision that led in our century to the mass carnage of two world wars, genocide, Cold War and a nuclear arms race. He limns striking portraits of Hitler craving war to fulfill his global ambitions, of Stalin, a ``supreme realist'' in international affairs, and of Franklin D. Roosevelt courageously steering an isolationist people into war. Kissinger defines Nixon's achievement as a refusal to abdicate America's global role, and he gives Reagan a large measure of credit for the collapse of the Soviet empire. While urging support for Russian liberalism, he stresses that the U.S. should simultaneously bolster obstacles to Russian expansionism, which neither Bush nor Clinton has done. Photos. BOMC and History Book Club main selections.