World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

by Henry Kissinger

This belief is what Dean Acheson, the model and seminal Secretary of State to many of his successors (including me), practiced. From 1949 to 1953 he concentrated on building what he called “situations of strength” via NATO; East-West diplomacy would more or less automatically reflect the balance of power. During the Eisenhower administration, his successor, John Foster Dulles, extended the alliance system through SEATO for Southeast Asia (1954) and the Baghdad Pact for the Middle East (1955). In effect, containment came to be equated with the construction of military alliances around the entire Soviet periphery over two continents. World order would consist of the confrontation of two incongruent superpowers—each of which organized an international order within its sphere.