Kissinger’s centenary reflections

Henry Kissinger’s warning, as he reached his 100th birthday on Saturday, that the world was inexorably “on the path to great-power confrontation” should be heeded by world leaders. No one alive has had more experience of international affairs and the conduct of global diplomacy. Dr Kissinger has been one of the most influential figures of our times. He was, alongside president Richard Nixon, the main progenitor of the historic 1972 opening to China that enabled Beijing to become the global power it is now.

Only weeks ago, he addressed the World Economic Forum at Davos. His son, David, writing in the Washington Post, speaks of his father being “indefatigable” not just in his interest in world affairs but in immersing himself in “the technical aspects of AI with all the intensity of an MIT graduate student”. In birthday interviews with, among others, The Wall Street Journal and The Economist, Dr Kissinger said the world was in a classic pre-World War I situation, on the path to great-power confrontation because “both sides have convinced themselves that the other represents a strategic danger”.

He is alarmed, The Economist reported, by intensifying competition between China and the US for technological pre-eminence. As Russia tumbles into China’s orbit and war overshadows Europe’s eastern flank, he fears that AI is about to supercharge the Sino-American rivalry. The technological basis for warfare was shifting so fast, he said, that countries lacked any settled principle on which they could establish order. Without one, “they may resort to force”. At a time when the world was riven by US-China competition and threatened by fearsome new weapons, Dr Kissinger told The Wall Street Journal, US leadership and confidence were fading. Restoring that confidence and finding statesmen who could lead it was an urgent necessity. “The most important conversation that can take place now is between the two leaders of the US and China, in which they agree that they have the most dangerous capabilities in the world and that they will conduct their policy in such a way that the military conflict with them is reduced.” A Ukrainian-style war in Taiwan, he said, would destroy the island and devastate the world economy. It could also set back China domestically, when its leader’s greatest fear was upheaval at home.

The US, Dr Kissinger said, desperately needed long-term strategic thinking. “I don’t think (Joe) Biden can supply the inspiration and … I’m hoping the Republicans can come up with somebody better. It’s not a great moment in history.’’ Born only five years after the end of the Great War, the sweep of his life has been astounding. At 100, his sagacity is matched by few world leaders.