Diplomacy: a conversation with Kissinger.

Shrewd commentary on the US, Europe, NATO, the Middle East, and the UN.

...Mr. Kissinger pointed out that, in the immediate post-war period, "Europe was far weaker than today, but still prepared--with leaders like Adenauer, Schuman and Monnet, to conduct a real and assertive foreign policy--even if under the American security blanket and with a modicum of trans-Atlantic discord."

But today, fundamental philosophical differences divide the U.S and Europe across a range of key foreign policy issues. Europeans and Americans, I suggested, disagree as to both means and ends--especially the legitimacy of the pre-emptive use of force without an explicit blessing from the Security Council, as well as in their basic assessment of the gravity of the threats posed by transnational terror networks, which cannot be either bargained with or deterred.

The real difference, Mr. Kissinger interjected, lay in "what government[s] can ask of their people." It is because "European governments are not able any more to ask their people for great sacrifices," he argued, that they have so readily opted for a "soft power" approach to so many foreign policy issues. This will, of necessity, make it harder for Europe to reach a consensus with the U.S.

Kissinger American foreign policy diplomacy