World Order

by Henry Kissinger

The essence of such upheavals is that while they are usually underpinned by force, their overriding thrust is psychological. Those under assault are challenged to defend not only their territory but the basic assumptions of their way of life, their moral right to exist and to act in a manner that, until the challenge, had been treated as beyond question. The natural inclination, particularly of leaders from pluralistic societies, is to engage with the representatives of the revolution, expecting that what they really want is to negotiate in good faith on the premises of the existing order and arrive at a reasonable solution. The order is submerged not primarily from military defeat or an imbalance in resources (though this often follows) but from a failure to understand the nature and scope of the challenge arrayed against it. In this sense, the ultimate test of the Iranian nuclear negotiations is whether the Iranian professions of a willingness to resolve the issue through talks are a strategic shift or a tactical device—in pursuit of long-prevailing policy—and whether the West deals with the tactical as if it were a strategic change of direction.