America Needs A Progressive Metternich, Not A Flawed Kissinger – OpEd
The list of Henry Kissinger’s colossal diplomatic errors – from the point of view of US interests – finds its fundamental theoretical explanation in the fact that Metternich, his absolute theoretical diplomatic reference, was not at all understood by the US Secretary of State. Such an intellectual error of Kissinger’s diplomacy is evident from the very title of the book that first gained him diplomatic relevance: A World Restored. Prince Metternich’s reconstructed world refers to that of the post-Napoleon period of the old powers: England, Prussia, Russia, Austria. But strangely enough Kissinger didn’t understand that the restoration advocated by Metternich is that of a multipolar world, not that of a monopolar world advocated by Kissinger.
Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich-Winneburg-Beilstein, head of the Austrian diplomacy, known as the Prince of Metternich, who inspired Kissinger for his diplomacy, was in fact active and appreciated within the multipolar context and considered multipolar world fundamental for the best interests of his country: and he strengthened multipolar diplomacy just for the benefit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This fundamental motive inspiring Metternich that a multipolar world to be rebuilt is in the interest of Austria– completely escaped the understanding of the American diplomat who borrows Metternich’s so-called realism, but completely mistakes its logic by producing diplomatic situations completely negative for the United States.
Examples of violence that Kissinger wrongly supported are in Bangladesh, where 3 million people died with American weapons given to Pakistan. In Cambodia, with dozens of villages destroyed, 150,000 dead from hundreds of direct American bombings. In Chile by supporting Pinochet, a leader of human butchery, instrumental in an exemplary direct attack on all the communist parties that were looking for a democratic way to govern. For him, the democratically elected Allende is the same enemy as the PCI, condensed in his famous criticism of Moro, “spaghetti in salsa cilena”.
It should be here noted that the problem we want to highlight is not that of the violence of the actions undertaken or promoted by Kissinger which, if excessive and indiscriminate, perhaps should have led to the perpetrator being tried by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. This court, as it is well known, is invoked by the victors against the vanquished, but never accepted for themselves, and in fact the United States has threatened reprisals the judges who may act against USA human rights violations in Afghanistan or those of Israel in Gaza.
But leaving to other debates the correctness of recourse to the judgment and the limits in war not to be exceeded in order not to incur crimes against humanity, and limiting ourselves to Kissinger’s technical capacity for functional diplomacy in support of US power, Kissinger’s diplomatic incapacity must be judged precisely in the light of the misunderstood diplomatic motivations of his great reference, Prince Metternich. There are two reasons of incongruence here.
Metternich designed the new international diplomatic order – it should be reiterated that it is a multipolar world – at a time when ethnic-based revolutions were about to unhinge the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Metternich knew that the indirect spearhead of this diffused popular uprising was Napoleon, dictator, emperor, but bearer of a modern Enlightenment and civil vision of international society that, beyond his military defeats, imposed itself in the second half of the century thanks to the Napoleonic Code.
The extraordinary function of that civil code was in fact to codify the most important achievements of the French revolution, so that it became the reference point for every liberal insurrection in countries governed in an obscure and police manner. “After the guillotine, the right.” This is how the logic of the Napoleonic code can be summarized. Abolition of the privileges of clergy and nobility. Responsibility of the State. Legal capacity of all citizens in public life. Religious freedom. Possibility for all to ascend to any military office. This was the code that, along with his soldiers, Napoleon carried around.
This civil code frightened, and rightly so, all the police and anti-libertarian governments that existed in Europe. In practice, “all” governments. The Chartreuse of Parma, Stendhal’s great novel, evokes this libertarian and civil Napoleonic climate in the educated strata of the populations by a writer who perhaps does not have the evocative historical power of a Tolstoy or the captivating ease of writing of a Balzac, perhaps lacking a bit of political depth of the former and some of social inspirations of the latter, but it surpasses both for the descriptive social brilliance of the peculiar local situations, see for example “Italian Chronicles” an unsurpassed picture of an Italy bound by regional cultural old fashion powers, even more than by foolish politicians. Napoleon is an enlightened dictator as perhaps Julius Caesar was – or would have been. His innovative social force – Napoleon’s – risked expanding throughout Europe, as in fact happened, while in Caesar’s case throughout the submitted empire, as it didn’t happen. Very serious threats both.
And here is the second conceptual fallacy of Kissinger’s diplomacy. For Metternich, Napoleon had to be defeated on the military terrain, but also on the conceptual terrain because in addition to violating a multipolar order that Metternich wanted to reconstruct, he violated with the civil code, an ancient, illiberal, police logic that Metternich wanted to restore. Therefore, the order that Metternich wanted to establish is multipolar, illiberal and police-like. But on this terrain, Kissinger missed to understand that the United States does not have an illiberal and police order to re-establish, but on the contrary, it is precisely the USA who are the bearers of the principles of democracy and liberalism to be affirmed as a pillar of its diplomacy.
Kissinger’s two errors of Metternich’s interpretation in the light of U.S. interests are therefore very serious. To summarize: for the Austrian prince there is a multifaceted world to be re-established and kept in balance, in order to save Austria’s interests. For the American diplomat, there is a monopolar world to be affirmed in spite of the limited (bipolar) multilateralism that exists. In order to destroy this limited bipolar equilibrium with the USSR – which Metternich in his political vision would have managed instead – Kissinger had the good idea of weakening the adversary by laying the foundations of a new power: China. What a great idea! To weaken the USSR, he gets China off the ground in an economic way that China would have been absolutely incapable of doing on its own.
Among other things, it escaped Kissinger that the URSS would never be able to compete with the United States on the economic level, and the reduction of international communication bans in an accepted bipolar world could have a future impact on the internal inbalance of URSS. China, on the other hand, as a potential demographic giant waiting to take off, something absolutely unable to do on its own – poor finance and no technology – could become as it is, as the potential enemy number one.
So the first mistake. Metternich wanted an order based on a multipolar world. Kissinger wanted a monopolar world, but in order to achieve it, he evoked the great potential future enemy of the United States.
Second conceptual flaw. The order that Metternich wanted to restore is based on the denial of the internal political and social freedom of states. What Kissinger did not understand is that it is precisely the United States the standard-bearer of the principles of political and social freedom that Metternich wants to destroy. Kissinger did everything to suppress, violate and destroy those freedoms and is instrumental for America to lose a formidable diplomatic lever for its own future. In conclusion Kissinger’s America is the country that bombs Cambodia for a war that it will lose. Kissinger’s America supports the brutal aggression against Bangladesh for a war that Pakistan will lose. Both terrible diplomatic mistakes based on wrong understanding of his own diplomatic hero: Metternich
U.S. diplomatic weakness in Asia is the result of these very serious errors of Kissinger diplomacy, which are almost certainly at the origin of NATO’s aggressive philosophy towards Russia that violates a fundamental diplomatic principle of political power, divide and rule. The attack on Russia has become the best mechanism to unite Russia with China.
In light of the failures of Kissinger’s diplomacy, in the run-up to the next election, it can be said that America today needs to rid itself of Kissinger’s gross diplomatic mistakes. To remember a great intellectual of American politics, Gore Vidal, America does not need “Perpetual war for perpetual peace”. Instead, it would be appropriate for a presidential candidate’s foreign policy to be inspired by a famous speech by Kennedy at the graduation celebration of American University students in June 1963.
Kennedy said: What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children–not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women–not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
This is the diplomatic vision of a future president that America needs in order to correct Kissinger’s grave diplomatic mistakes, and to strengthen the U.S. face to face with the challenge of Asia. Ukraine must become a problem – maybe an opportunity for Europe – not yet another NATO outpost against Russia. China must be an interlocutor of multipolarity, not an enemy to be defeated. America for its growth needs a Metternich-style multipolar world. Let’s hope that Biden 2 or Trump 2 will take this into account. America needs a progressive Metternich.
