[Insight & Opinion] Kissinger's Geopolitics

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made a bombshell statement at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, on May 23. He suggested ceding part of Ukraine’s territory, which is currently at war with Russia, to Russia in order to establish peace. Ukraine immediately reacted with strong opposition. Why did Kissinger make such a statement?

When Kissinger was 15 years old in 1938, his Jewish family fled Nazi persecution and emigrated from Germany to the United States. Kissinger was born and raised in Bavaria, where Karl Haushofer, the father of German geopolitics, was mainly active. German geopolitics had theoretically supported Nazi expansionism. After the Nazi defeat, the word geopolitics itself became taboo.

However, Kissinger, who knew the dark history of German geopolitics better than anyone, popularized the term “geopolitics.” When he became National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon in November 1968, his use of the term in speeches and writings led to frequent appearances of the word in newspapers and various magazines. Especially in his book The White House Years, the term appears more than 60 times.

Kissinger pointed out that the United States had three strategic traditions after World War II: the idealistic tradition, the pragmatic tradition, and the legalistic tradition. Criticizing this, he emphasized that the U.S. also had a geopolitical tradition like Alfred Thayer Mahan’s “sea power” theory and that it should be continued. He perceived the U.S. containment policy toward the Soviet Union as excessively militaristic and overly ideological, and believed it was preferable to control the Soviet Union through a geopolitical balance of power.

Kissinger’s geopolitical thinking shone most brightly in the normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1972. He said, “Geopolitically, it is against U.S. interests for the Soviet Union to dominate China or for China to lean toward the Soviet Union.” Kissinger’s strategic insight and Nixon’s decision made new history possible. The improvement of U.S.-China relations was the greatest geopolitical event of the Cold War era. It established a structure in which the U.S. and China allied to check the Soviet Union. This was a huge strategic loss for the Soviet Union and an enormous gain for the United States.

To understand the true intent of Kissinger’s shocking remarks at this year’s Davos Forum, one must look at his entire statement. He said Russia had been part of Europe for 400 years and was one axis of the balance of power within Europe. He emphasized that the West must restore Russia’s role so that Russia never becomes a permanent ally of China. This is the core of Kissinger’s remarks. He views a permanent alliance between China and Russia as a fatal strategic loss for the West. To prevent this, he calls for reintegrating Russia into the Western order. For this, he believes Ukraine should become a neutral bridge connecting Russia and Europe. His perception presupposes that China is the greatest threat to the U.S. and the West. The strategy that once drew China to the U.S. side to check the Soviet Union is now reversed: to check China, the West must embrace Russia. This is a stark expression of his realist political philosophy (realpolitik).

The man who weakened Soviet power through d?tente with China 50 years ago now seeks to embrace Russia to check the fiercely rising China. It will be interesting to see how history evaluates his perspective on the Ukraine crisis within this grand framework.

By Kim Dong-gi, Writer