World Order

by Henry Kissinger

After Bismarck’s forced departure in 1890 (after a clash with the new Kaiser Wilhelm II over the scope of his authority), his system of overlapping alliances was maintained only tenuously. Leo von Caprivi, the next Chancellor, complained that while Bismarck had been able to keep five balls in the air simultaneously, he had difficulty controlling two. The Reinsurance Treaty with Russia was not renewed in 1891 on the ground that it was partly incompatible with the Austrian alliance—which, in Bismarck’s view, had been precisely its utility. Almost inevitably, France and Russia began exploring an alliance. Such realignments had happened several times before in the European kaleidoscope of shifting orders. The novelty now was its institutionalized permanence. Diplomacy had lost its resilience; it had become a matter of life and death rather than incremental adjustment. Because a switch in alliances might spell national disaster for the abandoned side, each ally was able to extort support from its partner regardless of its best convictions, thereby escalating all crises and linking them to each other. Diplomacy became an effort to tighten the internal bonds of each camp, leading to the perpetuation and reinforcement of all grievances.