Word: foreign
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...much at home in the 19th century. However, states and statesmen were more predictable during that period, and the margin for error was a little greater. He is not alone in arguing that the U.S. could benefit from reading?and understanding?history. "The pre-eminent task of American foreign policy," he has said, "ought to be to get some reputation for steadiness. Whether we are dangerous to our enemies one can argue, but we are murder on our friends. We will not get steadiness unless we can have a certain philosophy of what we are trying...
...major questions about Kissinger are: What does he stand for and how much power does he have? On the first, he has documented himself over a dozen years with many hundreds of pages on diplomatic history, military strategy and foreign relations-although his views, seldom rigid, have evolved on a number of points. Perhaps the most interesting fact about him is that he has not fallen into either of the two great temptations that have beset American foreign policy in the past ?excessive idealism and excessive pragmatism. He believes in the concept of order, but he does not believe...
...reluctant to "think in terms of power and equilibrium." It has not grasped the fundamental importance of operating from the stable base of a widely accepted world view. In his philosophy, the empirical approach that has served the U.S. so well in other fields can prove misleading in foreign affairs; it tends to produce ad hoc solutions pegged to the crisis of the moment, but not necessarily to predetermined needs and interest. In realistic terms, no policy can be expected to succeed unless it anticipates not only the desired outcome but also the other side effects it may produce...
Kissinger has a long record of pronouncements on nuclear issues; it was in this field that he first made his name. Yet his work has at times been open to varying interpretations. In his first major book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, he said that limited nuclear war was containable and therefore conceivable. He later backed away from that theory; yet for a time colleagues mirthfully referred to him as "Dr. Strangelove, East" (Physicist Edward Teller held the Western title). But his main argument, which eventually became U.S. policy, was that the old massive-retaliation approach of the middle...
Kissinger calls himself a political independent. "If I were in 19th century Great Britain," he says, "I might be a Disraeli Conservative in domestic affairs, but not in foreign policy." Disraeli was an unabashed imperialist. Kissinger, by contrast, believes that U.S. power must not be spread too thinly, especially in politically underdeveloped areas that Americans little understand...