A review of Henry Kissinger's "Diplomacy"

The National Bestseller Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger is a phenomenal treatise on international relations for the first three quarters of the book. This is because Kissinger moves from a scrutinizing recitation of western diplomacy to an unabashed justification of his own foreign policy agenda during the Nixon years. From beginning to end the book is an endorsement of realism in international politics and anyone bearing a liberal viewpoint on international relations will find little to comfort them in this book. However, it is a necessary read to understand the realist viewpoint on modern diplomacy.

Henry Kissinger labeled the book Diplomacy; however, Western Diplomacy would have been a more accurate moniker as the book does little to touch on the rich tradition of diplomacy in Asia. The book does an excellent job tracing the evolution of Realpolitik from the days of Cardinal Richelieu and Bismarck through to the days of World War I and World War II. Kissinger to his credit does describe the breakdown of Realpolitik leading to World War I. However, he lays the greatest blame at the hands of the British acting irrationally and not guaranteeing the safety of France. Because of this, he states that France was forced to console itself with weak alliances in Eastern Europe. This scathing analysis only gets worse when he moves onto World War II.

According to Kissinger, diplomacy failed in the run up to World War II because the United States and Great Britain failed to exercise Realpolitik. Kissinger asserts that it was the hallucinatory pursuit of peace through Wilsonian ideals that led to the breakdown of the international system and World War II. Peace would have been assured if only the United States and Great Britain would have acted decisively to defeat Hitler when he reoccupied the Rhineland. Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Diplomacy ends with Kissinger defending his foreign policy agenda during the Nixon years. He makes a reasonably good case that Détente worked and was the right move to counteract the influence of the Russians. Of course, with current updates, he has made it seem that this foreign policy agenda led directly to the downfall of the Soviet Union. Regardless of one’s political beliefs, Kissinger’s book on Diplomacy is a must for modern students of diplomacy and any who has an interest in the current Afghan and Iraq wars.

You can find Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger available online here:

http://www.amazon.com/Diplomacy-Touchstone-book-Henry-Kissinger/dp/0671510991/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1288741858&sr=1-1