World Order

by Henry Kissinger

Reviewed 16-01-2015 by K.
Wimberger
 General Information
Published by Penguin in May 2014; last research data that author
refers to also May 2014
Conceived at a dinner between Kissinger and his old mate Charles
Hill, when they concluded that the crisis in the concept of world order
was the ultimate international problem of our day.
Written by Kissinger with a wide range of support like expert
historians and research assistants
All text clippings in the review are printed in Italic.
Written for a global audience (vs. only American)
Objective: generating more public consensus for international order?
Leaving a testimony about his own work? Shedding a favorable light
onto American foreign policy? It seems at least that Kissinger is not
very critical with any of American foreign policy decisions.
Influential work looking at int. order in historical perspective; credits
to the author for categorizing international order and writing about
international order in a historical context which reveals some insights
that have not been obvious to the general audience
Others who have written about international order at such a level of
proficiency: Francis Fukuyama, Samuel Huntington, John Mearsheimer
 Table of Contents

Structured into 11 chapters

Introduction: The Question of World Order
Chapter 1: Europe The Pluralistic International Order
Chapter 2: The European Balance-of-Power System and Its End
Chapter 3: Islamism and the Middle East: A World in Disorder
Chapter 4: The United States and Iran: Approaches to Order
Chapter 5: The Multiplicity of Asia
Chapter 6: Toward an Asian Order: Confrontation or Partnership?
Chapter 7: Acting for All Mankind The US and Its Concept of
Order
Chapter 8: The US Ambivalent Superpower
Chapter 9: Technology, Equilibrium, and Human Consciousness
Conclusion: World Order in Our Time?
The Evolution of International Order
Where do we go from here?
 Critique
Critique that no effort is made to talk about other concepts of international order,
which do not have the nation state as its smallest unit in the center of
perspective, but e.g. a district [compare to Leopold Kohrs The Breakdown of
Nations and the documentary The Economics of Happiness > the origins of all
misery are to be found in excess of size]
Critique of the author for shedding a all too positive light onto American foreign
policy and portraying at times a neo-crusader-like picture of American values
converting the barbarian world Kissinger does not spend even one thought to
the lost respect in regard to American values in Europe or China. A nation that
shows a wrecked health system, poor and antiquated infrastructure as its main
achievements lost credibility. A successful interior policy comes first. A successful
foreign policy second.
Critique of the author for not having understood to what extent the Chinese
government already wields control of the internet; the cyberspace will is a model
for the Chinese government on how to deal with the international community in
the real world: authoritarian, non-inclusive decision making will be the norm
Critique of the author (but also understanding) of not openly discussing the
threats of Chinas rise and not making clear analogies in Western appeasement
politics with the current situation [compare Micheal Ledeen article]
 Credits
Credits to the author for categorizing international order and writing about
international order in a historical context which reveals some insights that have not
been obvious to the general audience
Credits to the author for explaining the original doctrine and fundamentalist currents
of Islam: Islam was at once a religion, a multiethnic superstate, and a new world
order. The areas Islam had conquered or where it held sway over tribute-paying non-
Muslims were conceived as a single political unit: dar al-Islam, the House of Islam,
or the realm of peace. It would be governed by the caliphate, an institution defined by
rightful succession to the earthly political authority that the Prophet had exercised.
The lands beyond were dar al-harb, the realm of war; Islams mission was to
incorporate these regions into its own world order and thereby bring universal peace:
Credits to the author for explaining that Central Europe stayed divided for hundreds
of years because of French foreign policy
Credits to the author for explaining Russia and thus making some conclusions
possible in regard to China since I did not understand Russia very much, I always
felt that there was a missing link in understanding China. I had a few AHA
experiences when reading about Russian history, because China just carbon copied
much of Russian policies, which Russia in turns adapted from European countries.
Credits to the author for dissecting the risks and chances of new technologies, in
particular the requirement to adapt our educational institutions to enable people to
deal with daily floods of information without being drowned into an abyss empty of
knowledge and wisdom.
 What is international order?
A widely accepted mechanism of how peoples interact based on power and
legitimacy
World order describes the concept held by a region or civilization about the nature of
just arrangements and the distribution of power thought to be applicable to the
entire world. An international order is the practical application of these concepts to a
substantial part of the globe large enough to affect the global balance of power.
Regional orders involve the same principles applied to a defined geographic area.
Any order concept bases itself on two components: a set of commonly accepted
rules that define the limits of permissible action and a balance of power that
enforces restraint where roles break down, preventing one political unit from
subjugating all others.
Any system of world order, to be sustainable, must be accepted as justnot only by
leaders, but also by citizens. It must reflect two truths: order without freedom, even
if sustained by momentary exaltation, eventually creates its own counterpoise; yet
freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the
peace. Order and freedom, sometimes described as opposite poles on the spectrum
of experience, should instead be understood as interdependent.
No truly global - all encompassing world order has ever existed [] yet of all
concepts of order, Westphalian principles are, at this writing, the sole generally
recognized basis of what exists of a world order.
Q: is there any requirement that the world must be governed by one single order
concept? is there a possibility for a peaceful bipolar or multipolar order concept?
 How can an IR approach be
categorized?
Realism: Power is what matters
Thomas Hobbes interpreted by Theodore Roosevelt: In new and wild communities where
there is violence, an honest man must protect himself; and until other means of securing
his safety are devised, it is both foolish and wicked to persuade him to surrender his arms
while the men who are dangerous to the community retain theirs. For Roosevelt, if a
nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect
others to respect them.
Liberal societies, Roosevelt believed, tended to underestimate the elements of
antagonism and strife in international affairs. Implying a Darwinian concept of the
survival of the fittest.
Roosevelts favorite proverb: Speak softly, but carry a big stick
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron of Montesquieu, applied the principles of the balance of
power to domestic policy by describing a concept of checks and balances later
institutionalized in the American Constitution.
Constructivism: ideas matter for ultimate success Anarchy is what states make
of it > balance of power
Idealism: e.g. Wilsonian Idealism with League of Nations
Kissinger takes no clear stance. He surely is a realist (10/10), referring much to
T. Roosevelt, but also believes in the construction (6/10) of a better world with
some American puritan fervor, and he holds Wilsonian Idealism (3/10) though
failed in great esteem.
 How can the current international
world order be described what is the
balance-of-power concept?
The current international world order was devised in Western Europe approx. 4
centuries ago at a peace conference to conclude the Central European Thirty Year War
(1618-1648) in the German region of Westphalia, conducted without the involvement
or even awareness of most other continents or civilizations
Religious unity had fractured in Europe (prior: Catholicism only) with the survival and
spread of Protestantism; political diversity was inherent in the number of autonomous
political units that had fought to a draw.
So it was that in Europe the conditions of the contemporary world were approximated:
a multiplicity of political units, none powerful enough to defeat all the others, many
adhering to contradictory philosophies and internal practices, in search of neutral
rules to regulate their conduct and mitigate conflict.
The papacy had been confined to ecclesiastical functions, and the doctrine of
sovereign equality reigned.
Thomas Hobbes provided a theory to justify the functions of a secular political order
in 1651 in Leviathan
The Westphalian Peace reflected a practical accommodation to reality, not a unique
moral insight. It relied on a system of independent states refraining from interference
in each others domestic affairs and checking each others ambitions through a
general equilibrium of power.
Division and multiplicity, an accident of Europes history, became the hallmarks of a
new system of international order with its own distinct philosophical outlook.
What concepts of order exist?

In building a world order, a key question inevitably concerns

the substance of its unifying principles in which resides a
cardinal distinction between the Western and non-Western
approaches to order. Since the Renaissance the West has
been deeply committed to the notion that the real world is
external to the observer, that knowledge consists of
recording and classifying data the more accurately the
better and that foreign policy success depends on
assessing existing realities and trends. > mastering empirical
reality [but hasnt China learned this technique from
the West? And applies it now on top of its Confucian
world view?]
The Westphalian Peace represented a judgment of reality
particular realities of power and territory as a temporal
ordering concept over the demands of religion.
In the other great contemporary civilizations, reality was
conceived as internal to the observer, defined by
psychological, philosophical, or religious convictions.
What World Orders Do We Know?

Anarchy
Pax X e.g. Romana, Americana, Napoleonica, etc.
Westphalian Balance of Power
Vienna Congress = Westphalia + same outlook in regard to
internal order between signing parties (then monarchy)
G X > China vs. US have different internal orders (authoritarian vs.
democratic regime)
French Revolution [compare to Chinese Cultural Revolution]
Rousseau condemned all existing institutionsproperty, religion, social
classes, government authority, civil societyas illusory and fraudulent. Their
replacement was to be a new rule of administration in the social order.
The populace was to submit totally to itwith an obedience that no ruler by
divine right had ever imagined, except the Russian Czar, whose entire
populace outside the nobility and the communities on the harsh frontiers
beyond the Urals had the status of serfs. These theories prefigured the
modern totalitarian regime, in which the popular will ratifies decisions that
have already been announced by means of staged mass demonstrations.
 What is the raison detat?
Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu developed [in 1624] a radical
approach to international order. He invented the idea that the state was an
abstract and permanent entity existing in its own right. Its requirements
were not determined by the rulers personality, family interests, or the
universal demands of religion. Its lodestar was the national interest following
calculable principles what later came to be known as raison detat. Hence
it should be the basic unit of international relations.
Salvation might be his personal objective, but as a statesman he was
responsible for a political entity that did not have an eternal soul to be
redeemed. Man is immortal, his salvation is hereafter, he said. The state
has no immortality, its salvation is now or never.
Royal power would continue to be exercised by the King as the symbol of the
sovereign state and an expression of the national interest.
Richelieu saw the turmoil in central Europe not as a call to arms to defend
the Church but as a means to check imperial Habsburg preeminence.
For two and a half centuries from the emergence of Richelieu in 1624 to
Bismarcks proclamation of the German Empire in 1871 the aim of keeping
Central Europe (more or less Germany, Austria and Northern Italy) divided
remained the guiding principle of French foreign policy.

 a. Europe
China had its Emperor; Islam had its Caliphthe recognized leader of the
lands of Islam. Europe had the Holy Roman Emperor. But the Holy Roman
Emperor operated from a much weaker base than his confreres in other
civilizations. He had no imperial bureaucracy at his disposal. His authority
depended on his strength in the regions he governed in his dynastic
capacity, essentially his family holdings. His position was not formally
hereditary and depended on election by a franchise of seven, later nine,
princes; these elections were generally decided by a mixture of political
maneuvering, assessments of religious piety, and vast financial payoffs. The
Emperor theoretically owed his authority to his investiture by the Pope, but
political and logistical considerations often excluded it, leaving him to rule
for years as Emperor-Elect. Religion and politics never merged into a
single construct, leading to Voltaires truthful jest that the Holy Roman
Empire was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.
With the end of Roman rule, pluralism became the defining characteristic of
the European order. [] Yet although it was comprehensible as a single
civilization, Europe never had a single governance, or a united, fixed
identity. [] For more than a thousand years, in the mainstream of modern
European statecraft order has derived from equilibrium, and identity from
resistance to universal rule > > Westphalian Peace and Balance of Power
 "Roman Empire Trajan 117AD" by Tataryn77 - Own work. Licensed
under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD.
png#mediaviewer/File:Roman_Empire_Trajan_117AD.png
 How can Russias difference and similarity from Europe be
explained?

As Charlemagnes empire had fractured in the ninth century into what would become the modern nations of France and Germany, Slavic tribes more than a thousand
miles to their east had coalesced in a confederation based around the city of Kiev.
This land of the Rus stood at the fraught intersections of civilizations and trade routes. With Vikings to its north, the expanding Arab empire to its south, and raiding
Turkic tribes to its east, Russia was permanently in the grip of conflating temptations and fears. Too far to the east to have experienced the Roman Empire (though
czars claimed the Caesars as their political and etymological forebears), Christian but looking to the Orthodox Church in Constantinople rather than Rome for
spiritual authority, Russia was close enough to Europe to share a common cultural vocabulary yet perpetually out of phase with the Continents historical trends.
Russia a uniquely Eurasian power, sprawling across two continents but never entirely at home in either.
Two and a half centuries of Mongol suzerainty (12371480) and the subsequent struggle to restore a coherent state based around the Duchy of Moscow imposed on
Russia an eastward orientation just as Western Europe was charting the new technological and intellectual vistas that would create the modern era.
As the Protestant Reformation impelled political and religious diversity in Europe, Russia translated the fall of its own religious lodestar, Constantinople and the
Eastern Roman Empire, to Muslim invaders in 1453 into an almost mystical conviction that Russias Czar was now (as the monk Filofei wrote to Ivan III around 1500)
the sole Emperor of all the Christians in the whole universe, with a messianic calling to regain the fallen Byzantine capital for Christendom.
Russia affirmed its tie to Western culture buteven as it grew exponentially in sizecame to see itself as a beleaguered outpost of civilization for which security
could be found only through exerting its absolute will over its neighbors.
With no natural borders save the Arctic and Pacific oceans, Russia was in a position to gratify this impulse for several centuriesmarching alternately into Central
Asia, then the Caucasus, then the Balkans, then Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, and the Baltic Sea, to the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese and Japanese frontiers (and for
a time during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries across the Pacific into Alaskan and Californian settlements). It expanded each year by an amount larger than
the entire territory of many European states (on average, 100,000 square kilometers annually from 1552 to 1917).
Thus the world-conquering imperialism remained paired with a paradoxical sense of vulnerabilityas if marching halfway across the world had generated more
potential foes than additional security. From that perspective, the Czars empire can be said to have expanded because it proved easier to keep going than to stop.
In this context, a distinctive Russian concept of political legitimacy took hold. While Renaissance Europe rediscovered its classical humanist past and refined new
concepts of individualism and freedom, Russia sought its resurgence in its undiluted faith and in the coherence of a single, divinely sanctioned authority
overpowering all divisionsthe Czar as the living icon of God, whose commands were irresistible and inherently just. A common Christian faith and a shared elite
language (French) underscored a commonality of perspective with the West. Yet early European visitors to czarist Russia found themselves in a land of almost surreal
extremes and thought they saw, beneath the veneer of a modern Western monarchy, a despotism modeled on Mongol and Tartar practicesEuropean discipline
supporting the tyranny of Asia, in the uncharitable phrase of the Marquis de Custine.
Thus what in the West was regarded as arbitrary authoritarianism was presented in Russia as an elemental necessity, the precondition for functioning governance.
The Czar, like the Chinese Emperor, was an absolute ruler endowed by tradition with mystical powers and overseeing a territory of continental expanse. Yet the
position of the Czar differed from that of his Chinese counterpart in one important respect. In the Chinese view, the Emperor ruled wherever possible through the
serenity of his conduct; in the Russian view, the leadership of the Czar prevailed through his ability to impose his will by unchallengeable assertions of authority and
to impress on all onlookers the Russian states overwhelmingly vast power. The Chinese Emperor was conceived of as the embodiment of the superiority of Chinese
civilization, inspiring other peoples to come and be transformed. The Czar was seen as the embodiment of the defense of Russia against enemies surrounding it on
all sides.
 What are the characteristics of the Vienna Order
how came it into force and what destroyed it?

the revolutionary and Napoleonic armies had redrawn the mental map of Europe. In place of the eighteenth century horizontal world of dynasties and cosmopolite upper
classes, the West now consisted of vertical unitiesnations, not wholly separate but unlike.
Linguistic nationalisms made traditional empiresespecially the Austro-Hungarian Empirevulnerable to internal pressure as well as to the resentments of neighbors
claiming national links with subjects of the empire. The emergence of nationalism also subtly affected the relationship between Prussia and Austria after the creation of the
great masses of the Congress of Vienna.
The Vienna settlement had reinforced Prussias strong social and political structure with geographic opportunity. Stretched from the Vistula to the Rhine, Prussia became the
repository of Germans hopes for the unity of their countryfor the first time in history.
Once considered among the strongest and best-governed countries in Europe, Austria was now vulnerable because its central location meant that every European tremor
made the earth move there. Its polyglot nature made it vulnerable to the emerging wave of nationalisma force practically unknown a generation earlier. For Metternich,
steadiness and reliability became the lodestar of his policy: Where everything is tottering it is above all necessary that something, no matter what, remain steadfast so that
the lost can find a connection and the strayed a refuge.
Finally, the Crimean War of 185356 broke up the unity of the conservative statesAustria, Prussia, and Russiawhich had been one of the two key pillars of the Vienna
international order.
For Metternich, the national interest of Austria was a metaphor for the overall interest of Europehow to hold together many races and peoples and languages in a
structure at once respectful of diversity and of a common heritage, faith, and custom. In that perspective, Austrias historical role was to vindicate the pluralism and, hence,
the peace of Europe.
Bismarck, by comparison, was a scion of the provincial Prussian aristocracy, which was far poorer than its counterparts in the west of Germany and considerably less
cosmopolitan. While Metternich tried to vindicate continuity and to restore a universal idea, that of a European society, Bismarck challenged all the established wisdom of
his period. Until he appeared on the scene, it had been taken for granted that German unity would come aboutif at allthrough a combination of nationalism and
liberalism. Bismarck set about to demonstrate that these strands could be separatedthat the principles of the Holy Alliance were not needed to preserve order, that a new
order could be built by conservatives appealing to nationalism, and that a concept of European order could be based entirely on an assessment of power.
The European order as seen in the eighteenth century, as a great Newtonian clockwork of interlocking parts, had been replaced by the Darwinian world of the survival of the
fittest.
Disraeli called the unification of Germany in 1871 a greater political event than the French Revolution and concluded that the balance of power has been entirely
destroyed. The Westphalian and the Vienna European orders had been based on a divided Central Europe whose competing pressuresbetween the plethora of German
states in the Westphalian settlement, and Austria and Prussia in the Vienna outcomewould balance each other out. What emerged after the unification of Germany was a
dominant country, strong enough to defeat each neighbor individually and perhaps all the continental countries together. The bond of legitimacy had disappeared.
Everything now depended on calculations of power.
This consensus was not only a matter of decorum; it reflected the moral convictions of a common European outlook. Europe was never more united or more spontaneous
than during what came to be perceived as the age of enlightenment. New triumphs in science and philosophy began to displace the fracturing European certainties of
tradition and faith. The swift advance of the mind on multiple frontsphysics, chemistry, astronomy, history, archaeology, cartography, rationalitybolstered a new spirit of
secular illumination auguring that the revelation of all of natures hidden mechanisms was only a question of time.
International orders that have been the most stable have had the advantage of uniform perceptions. The statesmen who operated the eighteenth-century European order
were aristocrats who interpreted intangibles like honor and duty in the same way and agreed on fundamentals. They represented a single elite society that spoke the same
language (French), frequented the same salons, and pursued romantic liaisons in each others capitals. National interests of course varied, but in a world where a foreign
minister could serve a monarch of another nationality (every Russian foreign minister until 1820 was recruited abroad), or when a territory could change its national
affiliation as the result of a marriage pact or a fortuitous inheritance, a sense of overarching common purpose was inherent. Power calculations in the eighteenth century
took place against this ameliorating background of a shared sense of legitimacy and unspoken rules of international conduct.
 b. China
Since the times [Han Dynasty 2nd century B.C.]when Europe was
rules by the Roman Empire as a unity a different concept of
order existed on the other end of the Eurasian landmass: it did
not base itself on the sovereign equality of states but on the
presumed boundlessness of the Emperors reach. In this
concept, sovereignty in the European sense did not exist,
because the Emperor held sway over All Under Heaven[ ].
China, in this view, would order the world primarily by awing
other societies with its cultural magnificence and economic
bounty, drawing them into relationships that could be managed
to produce the aim of harmony under heaven [ ] >
Confucianism.
Confucianism [Confucius is by some also called the founder of
sociology] ordered the world into tributaries in a hierarchy
defined by approximations of the Chinese culture. [] Thus
China felt no need to go abroad to discover a world it
considered already ordered, or best ordered by the cultivation
of morality internally;
 "Territories of Dynasties in China" by Pojanji from
wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia
Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Territories_of_Dynastie
s_in_China.gif#mediaviewer/File:Territories_of_Dynasties_in_C
hina.gif
 c. Islam
In much of the region between Europe and China, Islams
different universal concept of world order - starting in
the 7th century A.D. - held sway, with its own version of a
single divinely sanctioned governance uniting and
pacifying the world: expand over the realm of war, as
it called all regions populated by unbelievers, until the
whole world was a unitary system brought into harmony
by the message of the Prophet Muhammad.
Islam divided the world order into a world of peace, that
of Islam, and a world of war, inhabited by unbelievers.
Islam could achieve the theoretical fulfillment of world
order only by conquest or global proselytization, for
which the objective conditions did not exist.
"Islam percent population in each nation World Map Muslim data by Pew Research"
by M Tracy Hunter - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons -
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Islam_percent_population_in_each_nation_World_
Map_Muslim_data_by_Pew_Research.svg#mediaviewer/File:Islam_percent_population_in_
each_nation_World_Map_Muslim_data_by_Pew_Research.svg
 d. American Universal Democracy

American puritan version of world order being

formed in the 17th century: inspire the world through
the justness of its principles and the power of its
example. Peace and balance would occur naturally,
and ancient enmities would be set aside once
other nations were given the same principled say in
their own governance that Americans had in theirs.
The American version in effect became a defender
of the European balance-of-power system, but had
an additional aspiration to achieve peace through
the spread of democratic principles.
Q: the spread of democratic principles, too,
can be a fundamentalist objective why
forcing peoples to adhere to one single form
of order concept? life seems to be more
complex as to be molded into one form.
http://www.businessinsider.com/arms-sales-by-the-us-and-russia-2014-8
http://www.angrybureaucrat.com/2011/05/mapping-stereotypes-tragicomic-maps-of.html
This map illustrates the problems the U.S. has in the Middle East right now - sure, the U.S.
is all for democracy everywhere, but many of those dictators being deposed were good
allies of the U.S.
http://www.angrybureaucrat.com/2011/05/mapping-stereotypes-tragicomic-maps-of.htm
l

The World According to the United States

 e. Hinduism

Hinduism, which perceived cycles of history and

metaphysical reality transcending temporal
experience, treated its world of faith as a
complete system not open to new entrants by
either conquest or conversion.
Q: Can there be a single world order?
Compare to the philosophical and
psychological concepts of revolution and
revolt acquiring exterior order and
acquiring interior order which one has to
come first that the other one follows
ensuite? [Buddhism or Hinduism].
 f. Socialism

Marxist-Leninist socialism failed, but claimed global reach,

encompassing all mankind > revolution
The Soviet Union insisted on shaping a new international, social and
political structure of Eastern Europe on a principle laid down by Stalin in
1945: Whoever occupies a territory also imposes on it his own social
system. Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can
reach. It cannot be otherwise.
[George Kennan] At some point in Moscows futile confrontations with
the outside world, some Soviet leader would feel the need to achieve
additional support by reaching out beyond the Party apparatus to the
general public, which was immature and inexperienced, having never
been permitted to develop an independent political sense. But if the
unity and efficacy of the Party as a political instrument was ever so
disrupted, Soviet Russia might be overnight changed from one of the
strongest one to one of the weakest and most pitiable of national
societies. This prediction essentially correct was Wilsonian in the
belief that at the end of the process democratic principles would
prevail, that legitimacy would trump power.
 What are the reasons that an
international order ceases to exist?
Every international order must sooner or later face the impact of two tendencies
challenging its cohesion: either a redefinition of legitimacy or a significant shift in the
balance of power >>> the world experiences currently both: 2008 GFC is by many
observers considered as the failure of the American world order; China is ranked as
the worlds largest economy in PPP since 2014 ending 150 years of Western
economic predominance. Asia is generally on the rise.
redefinition of legitimacy: values underlying international arrangements are
fundamentally altered abandoned by those charged with maintaining them or
overturned by revolutionary imposition. E.g. ascendant West over non-Western world;
Islam in its initial stages; French Revolution; Communist and fascist totalitarianism;
Islamist fundamentalism in Middle East
The essence of such upheavals is that while they are ususally underpinned by force,
their overriding thrust is psychological. Those under assault are challenged to defend
not only their territory but the basic assumptions of their way of life, their moral right
to exist and to act in a manner that, until the challenge, had been treated as beyond
question.
Q: is a gradual proliferation of Western society with Chinese-Confucian
values, in particular different standards of labor law to be seen as a gradual
redefinition of legitimacy?
shift of power: international order proves unable to accommodate a major change in
power relations. E.g. dissolution of Soviet Union; Germanys emergence as dominant
power in 20th century Europe; emergence of China in the 21st century as a dominant
global power poses a comparable structural challenge
 Kissinger explicitly compares China with 20th century Germany; interesting because I have asked
myself this question quite often: if not only individuals, but also societies live and develop in
different time cycles [compare to the theory of German philosopher Karl Bloch] then it is to be
asked if analogies between Europes history and Far East Asias development are possible?

Geopoliticial Analogy: although such comparisons have been strongly rejected on the Chinese side, it is
without doubt that China can regionally only be compared with Germany in terms of geopolitics and
economic output. China overtook the US in 2014 in PPP as world largest economy; Germany threatened
Britains leading position at the beginning of WWI. Moreover, Japan the hereto 2 nd largest economy can only
be compared by means of its racial and cultural proximity as well as its geographic peculiarity as what Great
Britain is to Germany. In both situation, the US is somewhat protecting the nation which is challenged in its
regional hegemony.
Economic Analogy: although the industrial revolution started out in England already in the mid 18 th century
and took much longer than in Japan, both economies were the driving forces of economic development in
their region; causing neighboring nations to aspire to its position. In the second half of the 19 th century,
Germany did catch up with Britain in terms of economic output as China did during the last 30 years.
Differences: scale and development. The only differences that I see in between the two cases are the size of
the involved economies and the accelerated development. Both factors imply a much more disastrous
outcome if a war cant be avoided. It is therefore paramount that the Far East Asian nations and those
bordering the South Chinese Sea form a preventive partnership, which is comparable to the EU.
Some people I talk to perceive China in a comparable situation to Germany before WWI, some in a
comparable situation to Germany before WWII. I hold the opinion that it is a mix of both: In terms of regional
geopolitics and accelerated industrialization [compare Stefan Zweigs account of national hybris due to new
technological power in Europe before WWI in Die Welt von gestern] we see a situation very similar to Europe
before WWI, but in terms of a collective mental state some parallels with fascist governments before WWII
are all too obvious. Chinas technocrat and authoritarian regime which uses modern information technologies
to divide the Chinese mind from all foreign pollution builds up a similar nationalism that was so typical for
early Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. [compare Michael Ledeen: China's leaders believe they command a
people, not merely a geographic entity. [] Just like Germany and Italy in the interwar period, China feels
betrayed and humiliated, and seeks to avenge historic wounds. [] Fascism may well have been a potentially
stable system, despite the frenzied energies of Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy. After all, fascism did
not fall as the result of internal crisis; it was destroyed by superior force of arms.]
Karl Blochs Concept of Contemporaneous Realities
[1885-1977; Utopia Principle Hope]
 How does the current power relationship
look like in East Asia?

China, Korea, Japan, and the US, with Russia and Vietnam as peripheral participants,
are approaching a balance of power
But it differs from the historical balances of power in that one of the key participants,
the US, has its center of gravity located far from the geographic center of East Asia
and because China and the US, whose military forces conceive themselves as
adversaries in their military journals and pronouncements also proclaim partnership as
a goal on political and economic issues.
The US is an ally of Japan and a proclaimed partner of China a situation comparable
to Bismarcks when he made an alliance with Austria balanced by a treaty with Russia.
The political and economic map of Asia illustrates the regions complex tapestry. It
comprises industrially and technologically advanced countries in Japan, the Republic of
Korea, and Singapore, with economies and standards of living rivaling those of Europe;
three countries of continental scale in China, India, and Russia; two large
archipelagoes (in addition to Japan), the Philippines and Indonesia, composed of
thousands of islands and standing astride the main sea-lanes; three ancient nations
with populations approximating those of France or Italy in Thailand, Vietnam, and
Myanmar; huge Australia and pastoral New Zealand, with largely European-descended
populations; and North Korea, a Stalinist family dictatorship bereft of industry and
technology except for a nuclear weapons program. A large Muslim-majority population
prevails across Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and
Indonesia, and sizeable Muslim minorities exist in India, China, Myanmar, Thailand,
and the Philippines.
 How is the current world order concept
being threatened?
Westphalian principles are being challenged on all sides, sometimes in the name of world order
itself.
Islam: Proliferation of a new religious world order and disintegration of the nation state through radical Islam
Supranational Organizations: Disintegration of the nation state through pooled sovereignty of international
entities like the EU or probably at a later stage ASEAN
China: Proliferation of a new cultural world order and corrosion of the existing international world order
through a shift in power and the subversion of international mechanisms and institutions through setting up
a similarily designed shadow system [compare MERICS report on shadow structure of international
organizations set up by China to subvert the existing international order]
Europe has set out to depart from the state system it designed and to transcend it through a
concept of pooled sovereignty. [] And ironically, though Europe invented the balance-of-
power concept, it has consciously and severely limited the element of power in its new
institutions. Having downgraded its military capacities, Europe has little scope to respond when
universal norms are flouted.
Q: is Europe still a to be taken serious member of the international order is economic might
enough therefore?
Q: is the disintegration of the nation-state a threat per se or only if forced by the
spread of Islam? Compare The Breakdown of Nations by Leopold Kohr > the
village community as ideal size for a human society.
Q: does it really make a difference to the Western person whether its life style
would gradually or abruptly change into a new religious or new cultural world order?
To my mind, religion is part of culture. If a theocratic-totalitarian world order is
declared in the name of religion it is set equal, with what is considered to be
culture; in secular states though religion is only one facet of culture, with a
nevertheless deeply ingrained nature, which differs from nation to nation and from
region to region. [compare Martin Jacques: When China Rules the World; Niall
Ferguson: Civilization; China: Turmoil and Triumph]
How is the current international order
maintained and peace secured?

The current international order is clearly being undermined, but can be

maintained if Western powers are smart enough to accommodate and integrate
China as a new equal player who is entitled to a considerable vote in the joint
reshaping of the existing international order
Regional EU like partnership between CN, JP, KR and ASEAN
Reunification of North and South Korea
Peaceful global superpower partnership between US and CN
United EU defense policy and structure to counter the shift in power
balance and make up for the shrinking American advantages.
Japan will conduct this analysis in terms of three broad options: continued
emphasis on the American alliance; adaptation to Chinas rise; and reliance on
an increasingly national foreign policy. Which of them will emerge as dominant,
or whether the choice is for a mix of them, depends on Japans calculations of
the global balance of powernot formal American assurancesand how it
perceives underlying trends. Should Japan perceive a new configuration of
power unfolding in its region or the world, it will base its security on its
judgment of reality, not on traditional alignments. The outcome therefore
depends on how credible the Japanese establishment judges American policy in
Asia to be and how they assess the overall balance of forces. The long-term
direction of U.S. foreign policy is as much at issue as Japans analysis.
 What leitmotiv is the foundation of the
current world and its challenges?

Every age has its leitmotif, a set of beliefs that explains the universe, that inspires or consoles
the individual by providing an explanation for the multiplicity of events impinging on him. In
the medieval period, it was religion; in the Enlightenment, it was Reason; in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries it was nationalism combined with a view of history as a motivating
force. Science and technology are the governing concepts of our age. They have brought
about advances in human well-being unprecedented in history. Their evolution transcends
traditional cultural constraints. Yet they have also produced weapons capable of destroying
mankind.
I can not agree to this simplified application of leitmotifs, which is based on an entirely
Western perception. Science and Technology are already a leitmotif in the Western
hemisphere since the 18th century, but this leitmotif is nowadays also accessible to the broad
masses. All nations that did not experience the industrial revolution in its Western beginnings
the so called developing world [what a term as we are all constantly developing and
implying that industrialized nations have stopped to develop] have to catch up in regard to
this development some of them as it is the case with China did nevertheless great-leap-
forward without experiencing the leitmotif of enlightenment and reason. China in particular is
struggling, because it finds itself torn apart amidst all of the above mentioned leitmotifs and
its government answers with nationalism.
Thus China has to be viewed as a nation-continent with the power to shape the world order.
But it is trying to shape the world order with its own societys outlook: a society that has not
yet experienced some important sociological development steps. Similar to the psychological
development of a human being, it possibly causes for the sociological development of a
society severe traumas, if development steps are omitted. It is quite certain that a society
cant grow mature if certain steps are omitted.
How do new technologies affect world order?
New technologies transcend political borders Kissinger discusses two explicitly as: nuclear
proliferation and cyber technology

Nuclear Proliferation
It seems obvious that nuclear weapons are only means to keep the balance of power; its
application would cause devastation which any country wants to avoid [even though Mao is
quoted to having said, that even nuclear weapons dont instill fear to the Chinese people,
because in case of a nuclear war the multitude of the Chinese population would give him the
upper hand in an eventual outcome].
China actively engages in international diplomacy with objectives that are counterproductive
to keeping nuclear Islam at bay [compare The Diplomat: How China Complicates the Iranian
Nuclear Talks]
China pushes similar strategies in regard to North Korea: instead of allowing and supporting a
reunification of the sister nations, it calls a delinquent North Korean government - bereft of
technology except for a nuclear weapons program - its ally, similar to the UdSSRs
relationship with Cuba during the Bay of Pigs crisis in the 60ies. Kissinger is therefore surely
on the right track when he assumes that working out a collaborative strategy for a
denuclearized, unified Korea between China and the US would leave all parties more secure
and more free.
Bismark: We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and
the weak grows strong because of his audacity. The existence of nuclear weapons in North
Korea provide an incentive for Japan and Sought Korea to create a nuclear military capability.
For China, North Korea embodies complex legacies. In many Chinese eyes, the Korean War is
seen as a symbol of Chinas determination to end its century of humiliation and stand up
on the world stage, but also as a warning against becoming involved in wars whose origins
China does not control and whose repercussions may have serious long-range, unintended
consequences. This is why China and the US have taken parallel positions in the UN Security
 Cyberspace Technology
Cyber technology though is a means suiting the Chinese negotiation style: gradual assimilation of the non-
Chinese world to the realm of the Chinese cultural hemisphere. In terms of e-business such a tendency is
already visible. The sheer size of the Chinese market pooled with the autocratic government made it
possible that Alibaba outgrew Ebay, Baidu outgrew Google and Huawei Oracle.
International trade, in particular e-commerce, corrodes an important factor of national sovereignty:
taxation authority over its subjects (natural and legal persons)
China applies IT technology to separate China from the rest: If China can not shape the internet, the
internet will shape China [compare my own essay and the Sinica podcast on the Wuzhen internet
conference]
In the virtual world a new world order is about to be formed and will come into full force within the next
years. There already is a virtual world of freedom and Chinese censorship: one virtual world created and
approved by a central government reigning over 1.3 billion people, tailored to the ideal Han Chinese
mind and many virtual realities not approved by the Chinese government and kept at bay by a Great
Chinese Firewall. And with the shaping of the WWW structure China will as strongest contender for the
supremacy in this virtual international order gain the upper hand. All the other nations perceive the WWW
as a space defined by freedom, so governments have hitherto abstained from regulating it purposefully.
The strategic separation of Chinese contents from non-Chinese contents is on a big scale comparable to
book burnings under Nazi Germany.

https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/resources/China.pdf
Can the US lead Western international
order still be proposed as a system
worth being sustained?
all societies need to resolve domestic issue first,
then put attention on foreign tasks. America has
failed to do so. its society ha not only produced
legalized organized crime which infested the global
financial system, but also a dysfunctional public
infrastructure and healthcare. how can a
superpower be taken serious in the light o such
immense failures?
in the 80ies when well paid middle class blue collar
jobs were still available in America such a visit would
have been possible. nowadays it is not. a communist
leader would be horrified to see the difference
between laborers and capitalists. the US system is
failing as did the socialist some 30 years earlier.
 What speaks against the assumption
that China will fully join and stay in the
current international system?
considering china's unchanged self understanding, a society 5 time as populous as the
US will ultimately seek supremacy. The present concubine economy and all forms of bi-
or multilateral political cooperation serve in the minds of the Chinese elite the ultimate
purpose of reestablishing Chinese hegemony. in such a respect China is equally
dangerous to the present world order as is Islam, but differs in an essential aspect:
religious fundamentalism is substituted with the determination of cultural superiority.
both these phenomena serve as an ideological explanation why the present world order
must be overthrown.
it must as well be asked if religion is not just one aspect of culture. thus Islam and
sinocentrism differ solely in its theoretically egalitarian approach. Islam claims that
adherents are equal before the Quran no matter which race or ethnicity. Han Chinese
though will always be superior to other races similar to German thinking in the 20 th
century.
practically both Islam and China are not egalitarian. People in or closer to the respective
power centers will always be considered more civilized. Whether tribute is paid to the
respective hierarchy by means of a hadj to Mecca or a kowtow to Beijing, it fulfills the
same purpose: submission to god impersonated by an imam or a paramount divinely
sanctioned - leader.
it is a mistake to assume that the Chinese president and the former emperor differ in
status. Chinese dynastical cycles extend into the present.
in term of prowess china as a technocracy clearly poses a bigger threat to the west as
Islam could ever in the foreseeable future.
china moreover has already started to establish a new international order by setting up
a shadow system of international institutions.
Which questions need to be discussed by participants of an international order?

What do we seek to prevent, no matter how it happens, and if

necessary alone? The answer defines the minimum condition of the
survival of the society.
What do we seek to achieve, even if no supported by any
multilateral effort? These goals define the minimum objectives of the
national strategy.
What do we seek to achieve, or prevent, only if supported by an
alliance? This defines the outer limits of the countrys strategic
aspirations as part of a global system.
What should we not engage in, even if urged by a multilateral group
or an alliance? This defines the limiting condition of the [American]
participation in the world.
Above all, what is the nature of the values that we seek to advance?
What application depend in part on circumstance?
For the US, the quest of world order functions on two levels: the
celebration of universal principles needs to be paired with a
recognition of the reality of other regions histories and cultures. But
is it possible to translate divergent cultures into a common system?
Which recommendations gives
Kissinger as the grand old man of
foreign policy to his afterworld?
In the Internet age, world order has often been equated with the proposition
that if people have the ability to freely know and exchange the worlds
information, the natural human drive toward freedom will take root and fulfill
itself, and history will run on autopilot, as it were. But philosophers and poets
have long separated the minds purview into three components: information,
knowledge, and wisdom. The Internet focuses on the realm of information,
whose spread it facilitates exponentially. Ever more complex functions are
devised, particularly capable of responding to questions of fact, which are
not themselves altered by the passage of time. Search engines are able to
handle increasing speed. Yet a surfeit of information may paradoxically
inhibit the acquisition of knowledge and push wisdom even further away
than it was before. The poet T. S. Eliot captured this in his Choruses from
The Rock:
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Communication technology threatens to diminish the individuals capacity
for an inward quest by increasing his reliance on technology as a facilitator
and mediator of thought. Information at ones fingertip encourages the
mindset of a researcher but may diminish the mindset of a leader.
Society needs to adapt its education policy to ultimate imperatives in the
long-term direction of the country and in the cultivation of its values.
Does foreign policy have a destination, or is
it a process of never-completed fulfillment?

Is liberal democracy the final state of a

nations development? Probably not. Syncretic,
non ideological, system theory based parties
might be the next step in the development
What is democracy all about? Balance between
participation and leadership

Kissinger gives no answer to this question but

somewhat implies that democracy is the final
destination.
 476: The Roman
Empire falls apart end Charlemagn
of 5 centuries European
dynastic unity: a single
set of laws, a common
defense and an
extraordinary level of
civilization pluralism defend on
becomes the defining
characteristic of the
European order of Christ
although comprehensible
as a single civilization,
Europe never again has
a single governance, or a
united fixed identity.
The vision of harmony
Europe and unity thereafter
focused increasingly on
the Church. In that
worldview,
Christendom was a
single society
administered by two
complementary
authorities: civil
government and the
Church, the successors
of Peter tending to
universal and
absolute principles of
salvation.
Augustine of Hippo
concluded that temporal
political authority was
legitimate to the extent
that it furthered the
pursuit of a God-fearing
life and with mans
salvation.
Russia
Muslim
- divinely sanctioned
Turkish
Muslim
- differences by peaceful mechanisms.
Arabic
2nd century BC: No concept
of sovereignty emperor
held sway over All Under
Heaven aim of producing
China
Harmony under Heaven by
drawing outside barbarians
into relationships with the
Empire
800: 1624: Armand-Jean du 1648: Westphalian 1815: Viennese 1918: Treaty of Versailles 1945: European
Plessis, Cardinal de Peace Balance Congress League of Nations Community on
e crowned Richelieu developed a of Power system THE FIRST HALF of In the ordeal, the Russian, Austrian, Steel and Coal
Imperator radical approach to (independent states the eighteenth and Ottoman Empires perished
Romanoru international order. He refraining from century was entirely. In Russia, a popular uprising 1973, 1981, 1986,
m by Pope invented the idea that the interference in each dominated by the on behalf of modernization and 1995, 2008: EU
Leo III: state was an abstract and others domestic quest to contain liberal reform was seized by an
permanent entity existing affairs and checking France; the armed elite proclaiming a universal The European
all sides the in tis own right. Its each others second was revolutionary doctrine. After a equilibrium,
holy church requirements were not ambitions through a shaped by descent into famine and civil war, historically authored
determined by the rulers general equilibrium Prussias effort to Russia and its possessions emerged by the states of
from pagan personality, family of power) find a place for as the Soviet Union, and Europe, had turned
incursion interests, or the universal established due to itself among the Dostoevskys yearning for a great into an aspect of the
and infidel demands of religion. Its political diversity major powers. universal church on earth strategy of outside
davastation lodestar was the national (no force strong 1871: Bismarck transmogrified into a Moscow- powers. The North
abroad interest following enough to proclaims the directed world Communist Atlantic Alliance
calculable principles subjugate all Unification of movement rejecting all existing established a
what later came to be others) and Germany concepts of order. regular framework
known as raison detat. fracture of [comparable to for consultation
Hence it should be the religious unity 1949?] Rarely has a diplomatic document so between the United
basic unit of international (spread of missed its objective as the Treaty of States and Europe
relations. Protestantism) Versailles. Too punitive for and a degree of
Royal power would division and conciliation, too lenient to keep coherence in the
continue to be exercised multiplicity, an Germany from recovering, the Treaty conduct of foreign
by the King as the symbol accident of of Versailles condemned the policy. But in its
of the sovereign state and European history exhausted democracies to constant essence, the
an expresion of the became the vigilance against an irreconcilable European balance of
national interest. hallmarks of a new and revanchist Germany as well as a power shifted from
Richilieu saw the turmoil system of revolutionary Soviet Union. internal European
in central Europe not as a international order. arrangements to the
call to arms to defend the The papacy had Rarely has a diplomatic document so containment of the
Church but as a means to been confined to missed its objective as the Treaty of Soviet Union
check imperial Habsburg ecclesiastical Versailles. Too punitive for globally, largely by
preeminence. functions, and the conciliation, too lenient to keep way of the nuclear
For two and a half doctrine of Germany from recovering, the Treaty capability of the
centuries from the sovereign equality of Versailles condemned the United States. After
emergence of Richelieu in reigned. exhausted democracies to constant the shock of two
1624 to Bismarcks Thomas Hobbes vigilance against an irreconcilable devastating wars,
proclamation of the provided a theory to and revanchist Germany as well as a the Western
German Empire in 1871 justify the functions revolutionary Soviet Union.
European countries
the aim of keeping Central of a secular political were confronted by
Europe (more or less order in 1651 in France had spent three centuries a change in
Germany, Austria and Leviathan. keeping Central Europe at first geopolitical
Northern Italy) divided divided and then containedat first perspective that
remained the guiding by itself, then in alliance with Russia. challenged their
principle of French foreign But after Versailles, it lost this sense of historical
policy. option. France was too drained by
7th century: Single the war to play the role of Europes
identity.
Impelled also by the desire to cushion the policeman, and Central and Eastern the objective of
governance uniting emergent unification of Germany, the new Europe were seized by political European policy was
and pacifying the European Union established a common currents beyond Frances capacity to primarily
world currency in 2002 and a formal political manipulate. Left alone to balance a psychological: to
unified Germany, it made halting
structure in 2004. It proclaimed a Europe
efforts to guard the settlement by
oblige the United
united, whole, and free, adjusting its States to treat
force but became demoralized when Europe as an
German unification altered the equilibrium its historical nightmare reappeared extension of itself in
with the advent of Hitler.
of Europe because no constitutional case of an
arrangement could change the reality that emergency.
In the end the Versailles order
Germany alone was again the strongest
European state. The single currency achieved neither legitimacy nor The geopolitical
equilibrium.
produced a degree of unity that had not nature of the
been seen in Europe since the Holy Roman European order was
Empire fundamentally
transformed when
there no longer
existed a substantial
military threat from
within Europe.