Category: Realpolitik
Robert Kaplan on Henry Kissinger
Kissinger’s beliefs, which emerge through his writing, are certainly not for the faint-hearted. They are emotionally unsatisfying, yet analytically timeless. They include:
- Disorder is worse than injustice, since injustice merely means the world is imperfect, while disorder tempts anarchy and the Hobbesian nightmare of war and conflict, of all against all.
- It follows, then, that order is more important than freedom, since without order there is no freedom for anybody.
- The fundamental issue in international and domestic affairs is not the control of wickedness, but the limitation of self-righteousness. For it is self-righteousness that often leads to war and the most extreme forms of repression, both at home and abroad.
- The aim of policy is to reconcile what is just with what is possible. Journalists and freedom fighters have it easy in life since they can concern themselves only with what is just. Policymakers, burdened with bureaucratic responsibility in order to advance a nation’s self-interest, have no such luxury.
- Pessimism can often be morally superior to misplaced optimism. Pessimism, therefore, is not necessarily to be disparaged.
It is true that much of the above is derivative of the great philosophers, especially Hobbes. But it is to Kissinger’s credit that he consciously activated it in the daily conduct of foreign policy.
[. . .]
Kissinger was a “genuine statesman”, to use the German philosopher-historian Oswald Spengler’s definition: that is, he was not a reactionary who thought that history could be reversed, nor was he a militant-idealist, who thought that history marched in a certain direction. Kissinger’s conclusion was more grounded: he believed less in victory than in reconciliations.
Political Action
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien
The French saying is attributed to Voltaire. "The best is the enemy of the good." The idea is that one should not allow the pursuit of an unattainable perfection to impede progress toward an attainable goal which, while not perfect, is better than the outcome that is likely to result if one seeks the unattainable.
Here is another formulation, not as accurate, but pithier and replete with trademark alliteration: Permit not the pursuit of the perfect to preempt the possible.
Read more at Substack.
Three Senses of ‘Peace’
There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve.
There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve.
There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do not respect us, but they can be made to fear us, and for most practical purposes fear suffices.) This is the peace guaranteed by the strength of a Reagan or a Trump but undermined by the weakness of a Carter, an Obama, or (worst of all) a Biden. This is the peace about which it is wisely said, "If you want peace, prepare for war." Si vis pacem, para bellum.
Credible deterrence assures peace between nations. Never forget: Nations are in the state of nature vis-à-vis one another, and nature is "red in tooth and claw." This is not pessimism; it is realism.
A well-armed and well-trained populace assures peace between it and the state apparatus which is ever lusting to increase its power. The will to power wills not merely its preservation but its continuous increase.
The peace purchased by credible deterrence is the foundation of the other, loftier, two. You will not be able to achieve the peace that "surpasseth all understanding,' or even peace with your brothers if your monastery is being bombed to smithereens. This is why the Luftmensch must know how to fight, why the bookman must needs also be a rifleman. This is especially so at a time when those in control of the state apparatus have forgotten, or rather willfully ignore, the purposes that justify government in the first place, namely the tasks of securing the life, liberty and property of those governed. But the Orwellian wokesters now in charge invert these values in the Orwellian manner and aid and abet those who aim at the opposite. I trust my meaning is clear.
By the way, now you know why the 9mm pistol round is sometimes referred as the parabellum round. Also, and coincidentally, Pb is the designation on the Periodic Table for the element, lead, which I might add, nowadays counts as a 'precious metal.' A wise man in these trying times stocks up on such 'precious metals' as Au and Pb.