Henry Kissinger "World Order"

[Eddiey]

Any other foreign policy buffs out there? Henry Kissinger at the age of 91 wrote another tome about how international relations work. I've read and loved "Diplomacy" and "Ending the Vietnam War" and was more than eager to check out Kissinger's latest work. I like how it is more focused on contemporary issues than his earlier works, with insightful analysis's of the Middle East and Asia. Some of the material rehashes what he's said in earlier works but most of it is pure gold. I hope my brain is half as lucid if I make it to 91.

[maarsen]

I hope to be only half as despised by the time I make it to 91.

[Eddiey]

I know he is a polarizing figure, but I'm curious, what makes you not like the man? I am too young to remember the passions of the period when he was in office and only have other's written word on the time period.

[Spockydog]

Henry Kissinger advising on international relations is like Tony Blair advising on the best way to ensure peace in the Middle East. Oh, hang on...

[Eddiey]

You can say that,and I understand you don't like the man, but he's been respected in foreign policy circles for fifty years.

[Spockydog]

A lying, murdering warmonger, directly responsible for the deaths of over a million people. Yeah, what a guy.

[The Marquis de Leech]

To put it bluntly, the guy is a war criminal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Henry_Kissinger

(Or, to dig up a quote from the time - "satire died the day Henry Kissinger got the Nobel Peace Prize.")

[Nymeria10k]

Henry Kissinger advising on international relations is like Tony Blair advising on the best way to ensure peace in the Middle East. Oh, hang on...

Bullseye. I couldn't agree more.

They're both war criminals.

I'd be just as disgusted if Tony Blair actually did write a book about peace in the Middle East. *shakes head*

[Clueless Northman]

Which makes it even more ironic that he was the one major foreign veteran to call for caution, discussion and cooperation between both sides, in the Ukrainian mess.

And he had enough sense of self-preservation to tell people to call him first if drunk Nixon actually wanted to use the launch codes.

Though he's a lot of baggage as a scum and criminal with the blood of a lot of people on his hands in Latin America and Asia - without even going into the nasty side-effects of his policies, like the Khmer Rouges taking over Cambodia.

So, I'm not sure if it's that he's always tried to be a pragmatist, even a very bloody misguided one when he thought it was required, or that he's eventually learned from his murderous mistakes, but he seems far more reasonable when not in power than when he was.

Whatever, he fully deserved to be put on trial for war crimes.

[The Marquis de Leech]

And he had enough sense of self-preservation to tell people to call him first if drunk Nixon actually wanted to use the launch codes.

I think there are procedures in place to stop a drunk/crazy President doing that. On the other hand, his stories about Nixon getting drunk and trying to get him to pray alongside him (not to mention the Nixon talks to Abraham Lincoln's portrait anecdote, which I think is Kissinger's as well) are morbidly amusing.

[sologdin]

did he consciously try to emulate dr. strangelove, or did the image of both merge together solely in my mind?

since each stormtrooper will have to do prodigious services along these lines, the corpses will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

[illrede]

Any other foreign policy buffs out there? Henry Kissinger at the age of 91 wrote another tome about how international relations work. I've read and loved "Diplomacy" and "Ending the Vietnam War" and was more than eager to check out Kissinger's latest work. I like how it is more focused on contemporary issues than his earlier works, with insightful analysis's of the Middle East and Asia. Some of the material rehashes what he's said in earlier works but most of it is pure gold. I hope my brain is half as lucid if I make it to 91.

Reading it now, good stuff. First chapters have some direct bits from his Thesis, but that would be hard to avoid.

EDIT: I never did before make a connection between Revolutionary France's open document of fidelity with extra-territorial peoples that sought its norms and that particular recent instance where a client regime in otherwise good standing was "flipped" on by the US.

I just blithely assumed if we were doing it, Westphalian Sovereignty was involved somewhere.