Henry Alfred Kissinger is an important figure born in the Bavaria region of Germany and served as the 56th Secretary of State of the United States. Apart from his role in that capacity from 1973 to 1977, he possesses theories and ideas that have penetrated into multidisciplinary fields like international relations. One of his most direct impacts was on the success of SALT-1, a significant step in limiting highly influential weapons classified as strategic arms. While steering the relationship between the USSR and the US away from an offensive framework, he was also a critical factor in establishing the first diplomatic relations with China (People’s Republic of China), one of the “superpowers of the future” he mentioned in his work “Diplomacy”. Kissinger is the father of the concept of “Shuttle Diplomacy”. As the Secretary of State of the US under the leadership of Richard Nixon, Kissinger garnered considerable criticism for his strategies in the Vietnam War. Additionally, he couldn’t be deeply involved from the US perspective in the 1974 Turkish intervention in Cyprus, yet his influence on American foreign policy and the world order remains undeniable. Born a few years after World War I, Kissinger experienced World War II and the Cold War period, allowing him to closely examine the chaotic power struggles and rising military forces by joining the US Army in the 1950s, which influenced his worldview.

He is one of the founding figures of the international relations theory of Realism. One of his most popular works, “Diplomacy”, addresses the impact of the Korean and Vietnam Wars on the world order, as well as the predictions he made regarding US relations with China and Russia that extend to the present day. Through the lens of a former Secretary of State, he defines the limits of American moral principles and values, examining them in the context of national security. For Kissinger, American foreign policy is based on the principles he outlined in “Diplomacy”:

1)The achievement of world peace and its globalization means the application of the political and policy system of the United States and the acceptance of the same moral principles and values. While it’s expected for an American diplomat to propose such an idea within the interests of their country, Kissinger notes that due to the collapse of European hegemony after World War I, the resulting power vacuum had a destructive impact on the world order, thus necessitating the emergence of the US as a “reluctant” superpower. In short, Kissinger believes that the dissemination of the systems possessed by this superpower to the entire world is one of the initial conditions for establishing a stable order.

2)The US victory in the Cold War following the collapse of the USSR was achieved through the country’s strong ideals and democratic governance. He supports all the experiences the United States gained in international politics, indirectly attributing it to the political acumen of the United States.

3)He emphasizes that through Wilson’s Principles and the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, the US has a peaceful inclination but will not hesitate to use hard power when necessary. He believes that the Wilsonian Idealism is carried on by the US. He highlights Wilson as a turning point in foreign policy. As mentioned before, Kissinger, who encountered Europe’s aggressive stance during World War II, also emphasizes Europe’s “tainted” politics and its isolation. While always defending “American Values” as a skilled diplomat considering the interests of his country, he also moves forward with a clear line of thought by not ignoring mistakes made.

These three elements generally summarize how American foreign policy, which continues Wilsonian Idealism, was shaped from Henry Kissinger’s perspective.

Kissinger’s realist theory, in which he explains the elements and framework of foreign policy, emerged as a critique of Idealism following the end of World War I. The inability to achieve world peace as emphasized by Idealism is one of the strongest criticisms of Realism. At its core, Realism is based on the balance of power and the struggle for interests in international politics, asserting that states are the true actors in the international order. It suggests that states, considered rational actors, act in line with their own interests. The international order is accepted as an anarchic environment because unstable states and the absence of a central authority push states towards seeking maximum power. Describing the world order from a U.S. centric perspective, Kissinger highlights Nixon’s second presidential term, the fight against communism, and the role Americans assumed on the world stage. He notes that the Nixon administration interpreted these aspects in a realist manner in his own works. He also integrates the geopolitical threat element that realists carefully examine into American foreign policy, while facing an ideological challenge from the USSR.

The former diplomat emphasizes the value of the negotiations conducted to ensure Nixon’s “honorable” exit from Vietnam as a means to suppress the significant defeat suffered in Vietnam. He underscores that at its core, America supports a peace-based international order. Moreover, he argues that this heavy defeat and the unsuccessful policies against Le Duc Tho resulted in South Vietnam’s resentful anger and North
Vietnam’s brutal attack. According to Kissinger, the Nixon administration was aware that its Vietnam policies would return as a geopolitical crisis. In other words, in the view of Kissinger and Nixon, this policy was a source of great despair for countries reliant on “American support” as it was the foundation of the free world. Kissinger explains the failed policies using a realist perspective and references moral principles. Here, the policy pursued by the US is a realist strategy. A system beneficial for its own state is deemed beneficial for the entire world, although economic developments and identity conflicts are not given sufficient attention; the main focus lies on military investments and hard power.

While Kissinger’s focus was on the other superpower, the Soviet Union, he pointed out that despite being an important security threat for the U.S., Japan, which was from a different geographic region, needed U.S. support to establish its own foreign policy. According to the former politician, during the Cold War’s bipolar world order, ideological warfare was also included, and the struggle between the two poles essentially meant that a gain for one side was a loss for the other. Kissinger mentions Kennan’s predictions about the collapse of the Soviet Union and asserts that Russia’s exaggerated ideas about its state structures
and systems were not widely accepted by the rest of the world. Despite its achievements that could be classified as soft power, he indirectly supports this prediction by suggesting that it never managed to establish the necessary cultural hegemony in the conquered regions. Furthermore, after 1945, Stalin declared that Eastern European countries were under Soviet dominance, emphasizing that decisions about these countries should be made by the Soviets and not negotiated with Western leaders. The threat posed by the other pole led European leaders to gather under the umbrella of the U.S. and form a collective
security coalition. The primary goal of this coalition was to prevent the ideological spread of the other pole and suppress its military power. As explained by Kissinger, one hegemon formed coalitions with other countries to suppress the other hegemon, as this was necessary to prevent the spread of communism in the anarchic international system. Additionally, there existed a balance of terror; the only deterrent preventing direct attacks between the two sides was the possession of nuclear and strategic weapons by both the U.S. and the USSR.

However, a significant element was the lack of trust between rational states, despite their strong relationships. Even though they possessed such terrifying and destructive power, they never dared to fully entrust it to each other, hence their alliances remained cautious.

Even more crucially, after World War I, the establishment of the League of Nations (inspired by American politician Woodrow Wilson’s “Wilsonian Principles”) failed in its mission to bring about world peace because it lacked a mechanism to achieve it. Following the League of Nations’ expulsion of aggressive countries such as Italy, Germany, and Japan due to their departure, and the Soviet Union’s expulsion in 1939 after it invaded Finland, Kissinger doesn’t dwell on this topic extensively, but the superpower United States, which couldn’t become a League of Nations member due to lack of congressional approval, and on the other side, the expelled superpower USSR, both claimed to base their foreign policies on Wilsonian principles and the U.S.’s adherence to them. However, these principles proved insufficient in practice, with the most significant example being the Vietnam War that occurred during Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary of State.

During the early years of the Cold War, President Truman aimed to mobilize U.S. resources to promote the development of populations in other regions and protect them from the ideological hegemony of the
other pole. However, unlike Nixon, Truman did not attribute the conflicts and tensions between the two superpowers to geopolitical and insecure international environments. Truman believed that the difference between the U.S. and the USSR was merely due to the political incompetence of the Soviets. As a result, Truman thought that there might be a possibility of reaching an understanding with Stalin.

Stalin’s stable and dominant stance on Eastern Europe also contributed to the start of the Cold War. After the onset of the Cold War, due to the ideological impositions insisted upon by the Soviet Union, the United States refused to sit at the negotiating table. However, the steps taken by Western countries to end the Cold War conflicted with Stalin’s demands. Stalin advocated for the continuation of the bipolar world order rather than completely eliminating the conditions that led to the Cold War. Under this arrangement, Western Europe would belong to the U.S., Eastern Europe to the USSR, and Germany, which would remain neutral, would be situated in the middle of the two poles.

The 1954 Geneva Summit was considered a strong step by Western leaders to end the Cold War. However, Soviet leaders interpreted the summit’s outcomes differently from the democratic Western leaders. Exploiting the chaos in the Western bloc, Soviet leaders saw the opportunity to reclaim lost territories. They managed to suppress rebellions in East Germany without drawing significant reactions from democratic Western states. They established a communist order in Eastern Europe through East Germany, delayed the political unification of East and West Germany, and thus hindered the establishment of political unity.

Comparing Nixon and Reagan in terms of American foreign policy, Nixon did not hesitate to use the advantage of hard power as a deterrent against the Eastern bloc. He also did not fully demonize the Soviets or believed, like Reagan, that an agreement could be reached with Soviet leaders after a single summit. Reagan pursued less offensive policies and aimed to reduce conflicts and tensions between the Eastern and Western blocs. According to Kissinger, the Geneva Summit signaled Reagan’s potential to truly end the Cold War. In the early stages of the Cold War, the Korean War, which broke out in 1950, led to a positive outcome. This crisis favored European states and played a role in the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Kissinger notes that even though the U.S. did not have an “oppressive” foreign policy, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis during the Detente period had serious implications for countries like Cuba, the USSR, and Turkey due to the U.S.’s policies. Another significant region where the U.S. faced challenges was Korea. Truman withdrew U.S. military units from Korea a year before the war broke out. The military power of South Korea was weak. According to Kissinger, any chance of restoring Korea’s political unity, especially through military force, would threaten American interests in its foreign policy. NATO countries, including Turkey, supported South Korea during the Korean War. Kissinger argues that by demonstrating the limited nature of U.S. national interests to countries that supported North Korea’s aggressive actions and contributed to the war’s escalation, the U.S. aimed to show that it wasn’t fully committed to the war. However, despite being one of the two superpowers at the time, the U.S. had to prove its presence and counter the threat of communist ideology to establish hegemony in Asia. Thus, a state with “limited” interests would not engage in such a massive war to counter a perceived threat, as was the case in the Korean War during Truman’s administration.

Regarding the diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Turkey, the Johnson Letter Crisis and the 1974 Cyprus Peace Operation (which coincided with Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary of State) are noteworthy.
The Johnson Letter prevented Turkish troops from landing in Cyprus in 1964, and as a result, the United States took a stance in favor of the conflict that could have arisen between Turkey and Greece. Kissinger
expressed his regret over not being able to engage in mediation activities during this operation due to the Watergate scandal. During the second phase of the Cyprus crisis, President Ford, who had just been
elected, wasn’t able to provide enough support because he was preoccupied with forming his cabinet. Due to the Watergate crisis, Kissinger resigned from his position, and on July 22, 1974, he met with Bülent Ecevit, where he predicted that a coup would take place in Greece. If American foreign policy was truly continuing the ideals of Wilson and wasn’t able to actively intervene due to the issues raised by Kissinger, how did they know that a coup would take place in Greece and warn their staff to be cautious about Turkey due to their foreign policies? Despite having liberal-looking American values, U.S. foreign policy is
primarily driven by a realist approach in practice. Moreover, despite these actions by the U.S., Turkey, by expanding its airspace for the USSR, contradicted Kissinger’s claims, indicating that U.S. foreign policies
were being implemented in the opposite direction.

In conclusion, when examined both during Henry Kissinger’s tenure as Secretary of State and in his work “Diplomacy,” where he frequently discusses the elements of American leaders’ foreign policies and in his
interviews, the American foreign policy can be summarized as follows: The United States has positioned itself to dominate the entire world, masking this agenda with moral principles such as democracy and
human rights. In practice, it has followed policies within the framework of rational states and hegemonic powers, suppressing other potential hegemonic states of its time. It has established strong relations with
states that hold strategic and critical importance geopolitically in other regions and demonstrated its power in these regions. It is also a precursor to the formation of NATO, one of the most important collective security organizations of our time. Given the current conditions, as Kissinger predicted, the United States faces not only Russia but also China and India as potential hegemonic powers.

Mao, who couldn’t erase American influence from Korea, was aware that his communist state, which became surrounded by the capitalist system due to Truman’s support for Taiwan and actions in Vietnam,was encircled. The United States, apart from its influence in Asia and the Middle East, has also been active in the Mediterranean through Cyprus. Adhering to realist policies that recognize the significance of geopolitical concepts, American politics has hosted leaders who followed “softened” realist policies like Truman as well as leaders like Nixon who pursued more offensive and cautious policies. However, the common factor among them is that they aimed to be the most powerful state within the two-polar world order by devising both economic and military strategies against the communist ideology of the USSR, the most advanced country in the Eastern Bloc, while spreading their political agenda based on their moral principles. The policies of American foreign policy to counter the communist ideology have brought along various issues, including the longstanding Taiwan issue between the US and China. China, which is now the United States’ most powerful rival, has, as in the past, resisted capitalist policies. It can be noted that many of Kissinger’s predictions in this regard remain valid.

China, which is now the United States’ most powerful rival, has, as in the past, resisted capitalist policies. It can be noted that many of Kissinger’s predictions in this regard remain valid.

Sources:

* The Push for Peace: How to Avoid Another World War by Henry A. Kissinger, The Spectator, December 19, 2022

* China: Containment Won’t Work by Henry A. Kissinger, The Washington Post, June 13, 2005

* ABD Perspektifinden Henry Kissinger Etkisinde Türk-Amerikan İlişkileri (1969-1977) Toman, Murat. Sakarya University (Turkey), ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2019. 29177317.

*Amerikan Dış Politikasının Kökenleri ve Amerikan Dış Politik Kültürü Year 2008, Volume: 5 Issue: 19, 119 – 144, 119 – 144, September 1, 2008, Gültekin SÜMER

* AMERİKAN DIŞ POLİTİKASINDAKİ JEOPOLİTİK DÖNÜŞÜMÜN MİMARI: ROBERT STRAUSZ – HUPÉ Year 2015, Volume: 1 Issue: 1, 67 – 78, 67 – 78, June 1, 2015, Gökhan EŞEL

*NÜKLEER SİLAHLANMANIN ABD DIŞ POLİTİKASINA ETKİLERİ: RONALD REAGAN DÖNEMİ (1981-1989) MERVE SALMAN TÜRKİYE-ABD İLİŞKİLERİNDE TRUMAN DOKTRİNİ VE MARSHALL PLANI Year 2009, Volume: 12 Issue: 21, 377 – 397, 377 – 397, June 1, 2009, Barış ERTEM

*ABD PERSPEKTİFİNDEN HENRY KİSSİNGER ETKİSİNDE TÜRK AMERİKAN İLİŞKİLERİ 1969-1977 DOKTORA TEZİ Murat TOMAN JULY – 2019