Henry kissinger. To make a very long story henry is the preeminent scholar, practitioner of his era. I would take the error, from postworld war ii. Which is another way of saying the last seventy years. That henry combines as ability , as well to be effective in government. When you add them up, i believe stands apart from anyone over these s served three quarters of a century. Going to do here is some of the issues to the origin, conduct, and the end of the cold war. You whose appetite is wedded by some of this, there is a manuscript available for a reasonable price outside. He and i will have a conversation for a bit, then we will open it up to you, our members. There is one other reason im so glad to have henry here. Like to think that one of the ways he got his start institution sixty the s ago, when he was leader of a study group looking at Nuclear Weapons. In the same way that some people today are starting to sit down and say, what are the these new es of all technologies henry was some giants in the field met some of the giants in the o some the groundbreaking work on the critical, emerging technology. It in Foreign Affairs i think he did about articles in our magazine before he went into the government and the nixon administration. And he has done several since. In the administration, as you know, he served as national as secretary sor, of state, and kelly uniquely, for several years as both. I once described that to him is playing tennis and calling lines on both side of the court. A period, i thought, of, again, tremendous accomplishment. Lets start, chronologically, if we may with what might be the most fundamental, historical question. Here you had, after world war the the United States and soviet union occupying by scale a unique position, a shared position. Was the cold war inevitable, y mply given the histor what drives great powers . First, let me thank you for me to come here. Objective and fair introduction. [laughter] touche. The audience it is a fascinating topic for me. Through much of but i havent systematically judged some of these issues. What youre hearing is head. That pop into my in 1945, i was a Staff Sergeant the eightyfirst infantry of the american army. Sort of the view that russians were probably permanent in our life. I had no fixed foreignpolicy views at the time because i hadnt gone to college the one thing i remember very much is that we met a division of the soviet army. Beginning, they treated us with strict to limit our contact. My low level of, i would say, adversity now, speaking as a professor, do i think the cold war was inevitable . I think it was evolving. If you read what stalin was saying at the time about the nature of international was imperative for to have a confrontation of atmosphere between the two systems. He tly, i think now, because society ally his own disastrous and suffering and with so many prisoners turning the republic because if you read i of any conciliatory of tement of an operation that nature in 75 years. Can i interrupt you for a second . Would you say that the two erences between the countries and societies do l driver as tica more of the political aims of the two . A combination was of both. Took the United States and it had o accept that these political objectives. Cold erica slid into the war because countries and we had to explain why we had a the turkish aid program and then you had to done under certain terms. That it had to be done in terms that had time limit and, therefore, the time imit had to have some outcome. The nature in s which americans run politics. On the soviet side, i really stalin thought he society einvigorate his with a communist interpretation. You know, the berlin the actions he took. This book out there a long parts from of the e was president i said i were you people you did the n airlift . Were you thinking about when you did the berlin airlift . He said, a number of people so that the stalin. Antieither disregarded or dismissed him. Said three things tthat the americans will never fight a nuclear war over berlin. Americans if the are ordered to resist. If they organize along the front, come to me. That s view, clearly, was was temporary. There was a move in the give 1950s to unification to germany if they that was rality, but that was a move of from the america continent. It was not an anticold war move. We will have a chance to circle back on this when we go to our members, but i wanted to ask you something about the role of Nuclear Weapons. Central do you think the role of Nuclear Weapons were in the cold war called . If they hadnt been invented or introduced, are you saying that this great power condition would have gone the way oof other great power competitions and we would have gone to war . Would have not but it o an allout war, would involve nuclear the situation ted cing reluctance to get this conflict started at all. To talk about somebody who you spent a lot of which is he was described as much more unsteady. If you s his management, the , of the cold war from soviet Vantage Point . You know, i have never had ask if you felt i hhim in this respect. He, in my opinion, had a sort of messy system to deal with. But he was not the most penetrating mind [laughter] so he didnt want conflict. He was eloquent and saying things, and also thought which we the crisis in confronted him and from the dialogue know of the with him i think he generally wanted a relaxation with the United States. A very precise idea of get there, but i thought they were sort of fixed in their ideology. And he was sort of fixed in the communist ideology, too. Do think that he thought of tenses sought relaxation of tension. Unfortunately, at a time where to proceed, this debate evolved in the united aspect in which every became controversial. And every aspect of these Nuclear Agreements we of the nuclear discretions as a means of soviets in our on the nature of of our strategy. And my impression was that in European Security conference negotiations, he was the more ide of of moderate the more moderate sides. Was also one moment after a stroke in vladivostok european was a security conference i think anyway, elsinki ford and ing between greschnev. We had worked her way through aand arms control stuff, by that time, they had relaxed. And ford said well, we still have the middle east to discuss. And he said why dont we let henry deal with it . [laughter] he was exacting his revenge. Exactly. Dont think i you know, are not many people, but the liberty looked ood i always at him as the one who really the ed to explore relaxation of tensions. Partly because the messiness of his system had to become him, by that time. He obviously had the idea of resisting what he called the soviet encroachment and spread, but he also predicted that if it are successful at that, bring about internal change. All developed an elaborate inertia of the time. Your was the balance in thinking between simply making conflict between the united soviet union e less likely calming the cold war . And to what extent was your objective to bring about fundamental change within the soviet union . We had no fixed idea about about the latter. Concern us was we inherited the war in vietnam, which showed what in the United States if the American People lose faith in in their leadership. Obsessed were sort of with the idea that we had to the American People to t we had done everything do to avoid it. Of you, you, maybe many remember we were very to mant when they challenge very nto power, and go to g to resist and lengths in specific challenges. But we thought two things to be accomplished. One, to demonstrate to the were can public that we serious, and that we had a peace and of international order. Secondly, the pervasiveness of the soviet union. Be a if they wanted to National State pursuing interests, it was least two to explore accommodations with us. In a vague way, that in this process, the soviet union would probably to modify its domestic institutions. To predict of the that conversion the top item was item on the list. The top item on the list was to into an he Cold War International system. We thought that the soviet modified, but e two items attention and we conducted the European Security conference from that point of view. Were strong supporters of the humanistic aspect. But we did it initially because began as a platform if the soviet union if they then and crackdown, wwe could resist in the name of an international agreement. Pretend that we the way people inside the soviet union knew those principles, but the strategy soviet weaken the control by making the conduct an international issue. That, of course the there was to ategy separate the Eastern European countries from the soviet union. First think nixon was the president to systematically visit. To romania, yugoslavia, poland. I dont think any president had gone to Eastern Europe before. Certainly, in our mind, a way of weakening soviet control. It was so you think hard to persuade particular in the Republican Party of that logic . Why was it so hard to sell that idea domestically . Strange things happen in just to the not Republican Party. The democrats had been nixon for for hardline policies. They talked him along. And one cannot avoid the impression that some democrats was voted on maybe a little confrontation wouldnt hurt. [laughter] youre not referring to a certain senator from washington, are you . It it was i think ultimately inflicted significant change within the Republican Party. When they started, the still a ans were force, and the eastern establishment was to be maybe dominant. The he period after that, Republican Party moved and towards a part of the american not have the at do experience of Eastern Europe. Then, also, the foreignpolicy that one of gradualism and of understanding historical evolution and using it to the maximum extent. The classically american approach is that a problem is definable, can be expressed in a program, the program can be given a time limit, and if you cannot do it that way, then somebody is violating basic premises of american policy. So the idea of bringing the confrontation with the soviet union to some colossal ideological conclusion and it became dominant, and it led to theological, esoteric debates about arms control issues, which were similar to in the 19th century, there was an issue called the schleswigholstein question, about which lord palmerston once said only three people have ever understood it, one was dead, the second was in a lunatic asylum, and he was the third, and he had forgotten it. [laughter] so if one goes over those debates, there were big debates about the socalled salt i agreement. And then all the people who attacked it lived by it when they came into office. So we thought that the key issues were the geopolitical issues, and that in the arms field, we were substantially ahead and were preserving margins. Those were the debates of the 70s, and it was a pity that they took that form. And then reagan, in a way, resolved them by adopting the practice of the preceding administration and the rhetoric of it really didnt add all that much in the weapon field, but the concept of Missile Defense, which he introduced, apparently convinced the soviets that it was a hopeless process. So that was my next question. Theres something of a debate about why the cold war ended when it did, and theres at least a halfdozen different hypotheses. One is that Missile Defense had anothers afghanistan, another is the cumulative effort of nato over decades. Theres the gorbachev himself, either by design or that he essentially lost control of what he was setting in motion. Theres the idea that the people of eastern and Central Europe essentially brought it about by by with their with their feet. Whats your sense, if you had to essentially one can say all of the above and all that, but if you had to basically say what more than anything else from your perspective brought about the events of 89, whats your take on it . I think now maybe not so explicitly then but i think now that the soviets became gradually aware of the unworkability of their system. And i think, as i pointed out before, that brezhnev sort of felt it, but he didnt know how to translate it into action, and maybe he was wiser than gorbachev in the sense that he knew that if you fool around with that system, that there was no margin there to adjust it, and that when you try to adjust it, it was almost bound to collapse. What we now know of the soviet system if i look at some of the arms control negotiations we were engaged in and all the technical aspects that where we kept elaborating our weapons and for them to keep pace with that must have been an almost insoluble problem. If i look back at the 73 war the middle east war. The middle east war. The middle east war. And i mean, they you would have said they really had but they shrank back. And every time we made and given the conditions, even a reckless move like sending a whole airlift into the soviets always backed off. And that really indicated, i think, that they were exhausted by the cold war. That is my that is my dominant view. That doesnt mean that i thought so at the time. I thought we were stronger, and i thought we were in a better position to take wrists risks than they, but i still thought they were extremely formidable. And just one last question, and then ill open it up. Did you ever think in your lifetime that you would see the end of the cold war and the demise of the soviet union . Was that something that you even imagined . I thought i would see the collapse of the satellite empire. I did not think the soviet union would collapse or the soviet system would collapse, but i thought that the Eastern European countries, the satellite orbit, would gradually edge out of the soviet camp, but i thought it would take much longer. When bush 41 became president , he asked me what i thought the big event of his presidency would be, and i said, the gradual disintegration of the satellite orbit over the next decade. So i didnt think it would happen within a year. And what about the basic geopolitical construct of the cold war . Did you take that as something of a given for International Relations . No. We we looked at the opening to china as opening a new period of geopolitical relations, because not only did it open a second front for the soviet union, and not only did it threaten the unity of the communist bloc first of all, we thought that it explained to the American Public that we had a notion of world order and that this was not just we were not just engaged in defending a corner of southeast asia, but that we had a vision of how countries could relate to each other. Secondly, we thought that if we played it well, we could achieve a position in which we would be closer to each of the communist contestants than they were to each other. And so we so this was our geopolitical model, and we carried this out by correctly informing each side what we were doing with the other. So then, as time went on, the outline of a new International System began to emerge. But the hole in all this geopolitical thinking has always been the position of europe. Can europe translate, or could europe translate, its potential economic strength, and its conceivable unity, into being an element like we thought of the soviet union and china. And thats still the open question. And so i if you read the speech Richard Nixon made at that time, we thought of these countries as units in an International Global system and that we were just beginning the process, we werent going to be able to complete it. And thats not retroactive you can read that. That was in nixons article in Foreign Affairs, actually. Previewing some of that. Ok, why dont we take some questions, just raise your hand and wait for the microphone and keep it as concise as you can. Hari harihan . So from then to now, we now have sanctions as a new weapon. I just want to know, what do you think about the efficacy of sanctions in terms of what it does to the target, and the spillovers it creates for the rest of the world. Let me separate it into two parts. Into sanctions against individuals, and economic sanctions. I am very uneasy about this concept of sanctions against individuals, because i always i always think the first question you have to ask as a policymaker is, what are you trying to accomplish . And, secondly, whats the conclusion of it . So are you trying to accomplish some resistance to the government by punishing the people you are sanctioning . And what kind of International System do you have if every country goes around punishing individuals in other countries . And then how do you end it . Supposing the russians do something that we approve, then we say, everybody from a to k is removed from the sanctions list . So i dont i think it is a bad system for International Relations. The economic sanctions, theyve been very useful with respect to iran, and partly because weve been able to get the whole International Community involved. In the long run, one has to ask oneself that if we believe in a globalized Economic System and at the same time use economic sanctions for specific Foreign Policy purposes, will not countries that might find themselves in disagreement with us seek to protect themselves against being the targets of sanctions . And does that not, in fact, encourage a kind of mercantilism . And so as a general principle, i am cautious, but at the same time, i do not think we can accept the proposition