World Order

Review on "World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History" published by Henry Kissinger on September 9th 2014.This book offers great insight into the inner-workings and need-to-know basics of the concept of "World Order", human politics, history and our future. I wont go into extreme detail as there is simply too much information in the book itself to comment on in an review, but I will try to elaborate on a few issues I was left with, but make no mistake, this is a brilliant book written by a man with vast experience and intellect on the workings of global politics.Henry Kissinger's "World Order" is a great book for everyone interested in world history, politics and the concept about "World Order" based on the relation between power and legitimacy. Throughout history every great empire has sought to impose it's culture and values upon the world known to them, and rigidly trying to balance it's powers and legitimacy at the same time. Kissinger describes every great European, Middle-East, North-American and Asian empires who have since their conception strived towards fulfilling the inevitable conquest for an impending "World Order" where human beings are brought under an umbrella of global culture, values, economics and civil-rights.The book also focuses a lot on the relations between the Unites States of America and it's "nemesises"; Iran, Soviet Union (Russia), and China - and also goes into detail about the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea and Vietnam. The concept of "World Order" is so complex and often perscribed to an already established set of principles: The United States' democracy and capitalism, The Europeans "Westphalian System", the Islamic world's order based on religious legitimacy, China's history of isolationism, and mixture of communism and "confucian culture emphasizing harmony" and Soviet (Russias) "deconstruced" concept of international order through communism. The book does not deviate from these political ideologies, it merely relies on them to be the guiding principles of a future "World Order" where there is political hegemony, peace, harmony and prosperity for all. Whilst there must be some great nation(s) that "imposes" it's values upon other nations and that strives to balance the geo-political scene with values deemed to be important and invaluable to the human species, there will always be competing values, cultures and distinctly indifferent views on how to integrate these into our daily lives.There is also a great detail on each of the post-WWII presidents thoughts on the concept of "World Order" and what it contains, what it restrains and obtains, how it could and should be implemented and how it should be dealt with on the political scene. The reader should and would benefit from remembering that all these political insights and thoughts are products of the times they were constructed in; The Cold War, China's "Cultural Revolution" and "Great Leap Forward", USSR's fall, Middle-East conflicts and Central and East-Asian conflicts. There is also a chapter solely on the issue of Iran's Nuclear development and how the P5+1 countries tries to balance and dictate it's development and to "manipulate" it into being something Iran "cannot" use to dictate the balance of power in the Middle-East with Israel not surprisingly opposing it's every move and intention. Islamic history (and on topics of ISIS, the Caliphates, Saudi-Arabia, Persia) is also carefully described and analyzed, but not entirely criticized for it's clash with the "Western" ideologies and principles. In my opinion, "World Order" can never be based on religious principles or legitimacy as shown with the fall of the "Holy Roman Empire" in Europe, because it is such a egocentric and glorified concept that we are the creation of a "divine master" of the Universe that will "eventually save us all", because it will -- in time, in my opinion -- fall on it's own axis as it is not compatible with the political and social challenges we as a species face in the near and far future.The book is written by a man who has a lifetime of American and geo-political experience. It comes to my mind that he has without a doubt an invaluable set of insight into politics and the history of political development from the aftermath of World War II and up until this very day, but -- and there is in my opinion a great but -- he does not deal with nor elaborate on great issues of "World Order" such as the worlds economic model of free-market and capitalism and the ever increasing corruption from corporations to politics, the sad military industry complex of the worlds great powers and lesser nations worth billions of $, the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, the "pay for your interests" lobbyism of American and global politics, global famine and starvation, climate and global pollution, medicine and healthcare and the great risk of balancing "World Order" on a set of political and social principles incrompehensible to the majority of this planets population, which can eventually lead to an all-out war are we not willing to sacrifice and change our ways for the greater good on the path to our common future.This book is great food for thought, it puts forth guidance and analyzes the problems facing a "World Order" and is a must read for anyone slightly interested in geo-politics. For students of Political Science and Philosophy it will serve as a great detailing of the geo-political scene and workings of the great nations of power. For the younger generation it should serve as a factual perception of politics, but we should also learn and make sure that we in the future change and improve upon what is already established, as has forever been done and which has since changed the world immensely in tandem with technological and social development on a global scale. I dont have all the answers, and in my opinion, nor does Henry Kissinger, but the complexity of "World Order" requires a "World in Order" - one nation cannot do it alone, nor can it be solely one set of values and principles that forms it. Kissinger talks of not the improvement but the "reconstruction" of "World Order" based on todays political climate. And this reconstruction, is what human beings should work together for and dare not be afraid to embark on - as it is our sole purpose and destiny to make sure we build a viable future for the coming generations and strive for peace, prosperity and civil-rights on all fronts.I have not talked about every chapter in this book as this review would be too long for people to even bother reading, but I have tried to single out -- to me -- the most important topics and ideas in the book. Read the book for the entirety of the information it describes, it is a lot.I declare and acknowledge that I am a visionary, a dreamer of peace and disarmament of nations and especially nuclear weapons, I put my faith in science and technology to close the gaps between societies and culture - and I am a profound believer in the concept of "World Order". I personally do not believe it is up to the established bureaucracy or elected politicians to dictate and manage it's development. In Kissinger and many others view, it "requires" that "someone has to carry the banner and be the strong voice" -- but try to tell that to the 196 countries on this planet and the 193 members of the UN -- that someone "deserves" or "needs" the upper hand in this transition. It seems logic and rational given the status amongst Great Powers that USA, China and Russia, and eventually India, Japan and EU -- amongst others -- will dictate the future "World Order". But one day, we will all face threats grander than our own self-importance - whether it to be threats from the Universe (asteroids++), a tilt in the planets axis, climate change, or even facing again the threat of all-out nuclear war -- and then, just maybe then, we will have an even more "forced reason" to cooperate regardless of our indifferences, cultures and values. Let's hope we dont have to experience World War III for us humans to "meet up again to make sure it does not happen again".5/5 stars from me for all the thoughts, ideas and feelings this book gave me! Worth every dollar!

Surely there are few people in the world more qualified to write a book about geopolitics, present or historical, than Henry Kissinger. For a time of some 20 years he was directly involved in the decisions of American presidents on this very subject. Taking a broader view, Dr. Kissinger is involved in his subject (as I understand it even speaking to D. Trump since his election) even today and going back some 50 or more years!Without being too long, the book surveys the history of historical political orders in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, South America and Europe both Eastern and Western. He pays particular attention to the European "Peace of Westphalia" following the 30-years war in 1648. There is a theme here. Though there have been many European wars (and revolutions) since the 17th century they all occurred in a Westphalian context. Sometimes the context is respected, and sometimes violated, but even in the latter case, the peace process following the wars has either returned to a Wesphalian context and been, at least for a substantial time, successful in preserving the peace, or it ignored and violated that context leading rapidly to another war. The Marshall Plan following WWII an example of a return to Westphalian principles also the preservation of the French State after the depredations of Napoleon. By contrast, in contravention of those principles, French and English retribution against Germany following WWI resulted rather rapidly in WWII.Kissinger's focus on Westphalia sets up the problems he sees with Europe's and America's relation to the rest of the world. From the Western vantage point we look out on a world of nation-states and think to ourselves that as different as Asia, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa might be, they all, in the end, want to preserve their statehood in relation to other states. One of Kissinger's observations is that this is not at all the case. China for example sees itself as the premier culture on Earth and lives within the present Westphalian system of nations for reasons of practical accommodation. The Middle East, and by extension the whole of the Islamic World, sees itself as the only legitimate and righteous inheritor of the entire world order!In Islam the Westphalian matrix is the most jumbled with nations like Saudi Arabia and Iran accommodating it for practical reasons, while others, particularly non-state actors, try actively to undermine it leaving thousands dead in their wake. Sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of South Africa) is yet another story. The nations there are the result of recently (20th century) abandoned colonialism and though nominally nations, are riddled with leadership interested in little more than their own personal aggrandizement. Failed or failing states cannot participate coherently in such world order as presently exists let alone contribute to something better.Kissinger's first main point is that it is a mistake to continue treating with these nations AS IF they implicitly accepted the Westphalian context of nation states all "getting along". This doesn't mean we can stop working with these nations, but we have to be smarter about it and stop assuming they want merely to be like the Western world. Kissinger's other main point is that technology, the global issues it has already wrought (climate change for example), and the issues that have yet to fully manifest (mostly related to computers and biology), are stressing the existing system to a degree unparalleled in history. One is left with the impression that it is already too late. The existing "world order" has already become too inflexible, its momentum too great, to apply, and ENFORCE, global solutions to global issues. Kissinger doesn't say disaster is inevitable, but I do not see how any other conclusion is possible.In roughly the middle of the book Kissinger spends some time on the global effect of U.S. foreign policy from Theodore Roosevelt to Barrack Obama. He makes a number of observations here about the difference between the historical U.S. approach to foreign policy versus European statecraft, and notes of course that the foreign policy pendulum in the United States has shifted from episodic engagement to continuous engagement following the second world war. The force of U.S. engagement is derived from both economic and military power and importantly our willingness to use the latter now and then, though as it turns out mostly with inconclusive results.I notice he elides his own personal involvement in what might be termed "nations behaving badly" back in the 1970s and 1980s, but aside from this lacuna his point, his final point in the whole book, is that whatever else it does, the United States cannot now withdraw from the world order, even such as it is, without destabilizing everything! This book was written in 2014 the middle of Obama's second term. I wonder what he thinks now?