Henry Kissinger World Order Summary

Henry Kissinger is a former United States Secretary of State who served under the Nixon and Ford administrations. While his approach to foreign affairs have been controversial to some, regardless of one’s opinion of his policies, one cannot deny that he is one of the most prominent and influential statesmen of the Cold War. After Jimmy Carter took office in 1976, Kissinger left and took on a more consolatory role in foreign affairs. Since then, he has written a few books, the latest being World Order, from which this Wall Street Journal article is adapted. His premise is that the world order forged during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath is starting to fall apart. He cites some modern crises, such as the civil wars in Syria and Afghanistan,

He remarks that while the European Union (EU) tries to transcend the state without necessarily having the properties of one. This has led to widespread Euroscepticism within its borders, challenging Brussel’s authority. A poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that only 51% of respondents across ten EU member states supported it. This sentiment is augmented by the refugee crisis, which has strengthened nationalistic and anti-immigrant sentiment among some political groups, the most prominent being the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), who increased their support the most by percentage between the 2000 and 2015 parliament elections ("Results of the 2015 General Election"). Meanwhile in the Middle East, he observes that the infighting between various religious and ethnic groups has undermined the stability of the individual states, even going as far as to call them failed states. Another dynamic that Kissinger does not mention is political. The Arab String brought tensions between the governments and its citizens to the forefront, most notably in Syria. While it has mostly failed in its intended purpose, it does not mean these tensions have suddenly disappeared. As Jeremy Kinsman notes, “Like the great revolution in Europe of 1848, it initially failed. But a generation later,

While the international consensus is currently towards globalization of the economy, the political consensus is still mainly national. This discrepancy in has created “winners”, including those in the upper middle class of developing countries and the top one percent of the wealthiest people, and “losers”, the global working class and lower middle class. The losers in particular are not satisfied with how their position has diminished relative to before, which has led to reactionary movements throughout the world ("The Winners and Losers of Globalization"). For example, in France, Marine Le Pen of the Front National (FN), a party that calls itself the sole savior for the “French victims of globalization” (Angel), leads most polls for the upcoming 2017 French presidential election (Goulard). In the United States, Republican nominee Donald Trump makes calls for “economic independence” (“Policies – Donald J. Trump”) in response to North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Kissinger calls the response to globalization “paradoxical” in that it, on the whole, benefits nations across the world – American manufacturing increased 258% after it agreed to NAFTA (“North American Free Trade Agreement”) – yet seems to invoke an overall negative