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

by Henry Kissinger

the United States assumed leadership of the global effort to contain Soviet expansionism—but as a primarily moral, not geopolitical, endeavor. Valid interests existed in both spheres, yet the manner in which they were described tended to obscure attempts to define strategic priorities. Even NSC-68, which codified Truman’s national security policy as a classified document and was largely written by the hard-line Paul Nitze, avoided the concept of national interest and placed the conflict into traditional moral, almost lyrical, categories. The struggle was between the forces of “freedom under a government of laws” (which entailed “marvelous diversity, the deep tolerance, the lawfulness of the free society … in which every individual has the opportunity to realize his creative powers”) and forces of “slavery under the grim oligarchy of the Kremlin.” By its own lights, America was joining the Cold War struggle not as a geopolitical contest over the limits of Russian power but as a moral crusade for the free world.