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

by Henry Kissinger

Revolutions erupt when a variety of often different resentments merge to assault an unsuspecting regime. The broader the revolutionary coalition, the greater its ability to destroy existing patterns of authority. But the more sweeping the change, the more violence is needed to reconstruct authority, without which society will disintegrate. Reigns of terror are not an accident; they are inherent in the scope of revolution.

the Revolution, to prevail, had to turn itself into a crusading international movement to achieve world peace by imposing its principles.

The Revolution based itself on a proposition similar to that made by Islam a millennium before, and Communism in the twentieth century: the impossibility of permanent coexistence between countries of different religious or political conceptions of truth, and the transformation of international affairs into a global contest of ideologies to be fought by any available means and by mobilizing all elements of society.

The Revolution undertook to expand this definition of legitimacy to all humanity.

At the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig in 1813, the joint armies of the surviving European states inflicted Napoleon’s first major, and ultimately decisive, defeat in a battle.

Europe’s perennial German dilemma: when Germany was weak, it tempted foreign (mostly French) interventions; when unified, it became strong enough to defeat its neighbors single-handedly, tempting them to combine against the danger. In that sense Germany has for much of history been either too weak or too strong for the peace of Europe.

The Westphalian and the Vienna European orders had been based on a divided Central Europe whose competing pressures—between the plethora of German states in the Westphalian settlement, and Austria and Prussia in the Vienna outcome—would balance each other out. What emerged after the unification of Germany was a dominant country, strong enough to defeat each neighbor individually and perhaps all the continental countries together.

France and Britain developed small nuclear forces that were irrelevant to the overall balance of power but created an additional claim to a seat at the table of major-power decisions.

The dar al-Islam, in theory, was in a state of war with the dar al-harb, because the ultimate objective of Islam was the whole world. If the dar al-harb were reduced by Islam, the public order of Pax Islamica would supersede all others, and non-Muslim communities would either become part of the Islamic community or submit to its sovereignty as tolerated religious communities or as autonomous entities possessing treaty relations with it. The strategy to bring about this universal system would be named jihad, an obligation binding on believers to expand their faith through struggle.

Osama bin Laden had preceded the attack with a proclamation of al-Qaeda’s aims: The West and its influence were to be expelled from the Middle East. Governments in cooperative partnership with America were to be overthrown and their political structures—derided as illegitimate “paper statelets” formed for the convenience of Western powers—dissolved. A new Islamic caliphate would take their place, restoring Islam to its seventh-century glory. A war of world orders was declared.

The doctrine that took root in Iran under Khomeini was unlike anything that had been practiced in the West since the religious wars of the pre-Westphalian era. It conceived of the state not as a legitimate entity in its own right but as a weapon of convenience in a broader religious struggle. The twentieth-century map of the Middle East, Khomeini announced, was a false and un-Islamic creation of “imperialists” and “tyrannical self-seeking rulers” who had “separated the various segments of the Islamic umma [community] from each other and artificially created separate nations.” All contemporary political institutions in the Middle East and beyond were “illegitimate” because they “do not base themselves on divine law.” Modern international relations based on procedural Westphalian principles rested on a false foundation because “the relations between nations should be based on spiritual grounds” and not on principles of national interest.

But whatever face Iran presents to the outside world, it does not alter the reality that Iran needs to make a choice. It must decide whether it is a country or a cause.

The Emperor saw no need for trade beyond what was already occurring in limited, tightly regulated amounts, because Britain had no goods China desired:

China’s acquiescence in the concept of reciprocal diplomacy within a Westphalian system of sovereign states was reluctant and resentful.

At the heart of these disputes was a larger question: Was China a world order entire unto itself or a state like others that was part of a wider international system? China clung to the traditional premise.

When urged to adhere to the international system’s “rules of the game” and “responsibilities,” the visceral reaction of many Chinese—including senior leaders—has been profoundly affected by the awareness that China has not participated in making the rules of the system. They are asked—and, as a matter of prudence, have agreed—to adhere to rules they had had no part in making.

But they expect—and sooner or later will act on this expectation—the international order to evolve in a way that enables China to become centrally involved in further international rule making, even to the point of revising some of the rules that prevail.

The American approach to policy is pragmatic; China’s is conceptual. America has never had a powerful threatening neighbor; China has never been without a powerful adversary on its borders. Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems. Americans seek an outcome responding to immediate circumstances; Chinese concentrate on evolutionary change. Americans outline an agenda of practical “deliverable” items; Chinese set out general principles and analyze where they will lead. Chinese thinking is shaped in part by Communism but embraces a traditionally Chinese way of thought to an increasing extent; neither is intuitively familiar to Americans.

Reagan combined America’s latent, sometimes seemingly discordant strengths: its idealism, its resilience, its creativity, and its economic vitality.

The Westphalian concept of the state and international law, because it was based on rules not explicitly prescribed in the Quran, was an abomination to this movement.

Similarly objectionable was democracy for its capacity to legislate separately from sharia law. America, in the view of the jihadist forces, was an oppressor of Muslims seeking to implement their own universal mission.

Traditionally, Afghanistan has been less a state in the conventional sense than a geographic expression for an area never brought under the consistent administration of any single authority. For most of recorded history, Afghan tribes and sects have been at war with each other, briefly uniting to resist invasion or to launch marauding raids against their neighbors.

the proclaimed coalition and UN goals of a transparent, democratic Afghan central government operating in a secure environment amounted to a radical reinvention of Afghan history.

Recent studies suggest that adult Americans spend on average roughly half of their waking hours in front of a screen, and the figure continues to grow.

Communications technology threatens to diminish the individual’s capacity for an inward quest by increasing his reliance on technology as a facilitator and mediator of thought. Information at one’s fingertips encourages the mindset of a researcher but may diminish the mindset of a leader.