Skip to main content

tv   Book Discussion  CSPAN  October 5, 2014 10:00pm-11:01pm EDT

10:00 pm
secretary henry kissinger a vital presence in international and national politics since the 1950s named one of the foreign policy magazine's top 100 global thinkers doctor kissinger served as the 56th secretary of state under president nixon and ford and as the national security adviser for six years.
10:01 pm
during that time the policy of detente in the soviet union orchestrated the opening of relations with china and successfully negotiated the paris peace accord that accomplished the withdraw of american forces from vietnam for which he won the nobel peace prize in 1973 and parenthetically the gratitude of this young attendant in the united states army. thank you mr. secretary. there are countless other honors including the presidential medal of freedom, the medal of liberty and the national book award for history for the first volume of his memoirs, the white house years. his new book, world order is a shrewd and comprehensive analysis of the challenges of building international order in a world of differing perspectives, violent conflict, burgeoning technology and
10:02 pm
ideological extremism. and if you will learn about the westphalian peace and you will be led on a fascinating exploration of european balance of power from charlemagne to the present time, islam and the middle east, the u.s. and iran, the multiplicity of asia and the continuing development of u.s. policy. in my business the questions are often more important than the answers and secondary kissinger has some brilliant ones such as what do we seek to prevent no matter how it happens and even if we have to do it alone. what do we seek to achieve even if not supported by anyone what should we not engage in even if urged by the multilateral group, and most important for this the nature of the values that we
10:03 pm
seek to advance you will be intrigued and challenged by this book. i can't finish without mentioning probably one of secretary kissinger's least known but as a transplanted new yorker i think one of the most wonderful honors in 1976 he was made the first honorary member of the harlem globetrotters. [laughter] [applause] mr. kissinger will be interviewed this evening by jeff greenfield and acclaimed television commentator and author in his own right who lectured last year about his book if kennedy lived. it's an honor and a privilege to have both of them here with us and i am only sorry that i wasn't able to arrange the playing of sweet georgia brown but please welcome jeff
10:04 pm
kissinger and greenfield to the library of philadelphia. [applause] when henry kissinger was named secretary of state, the press asked him what shall we call him, professor kissinger got doctor kissinger, secretary kissinger. he replied no, your excellency will do. this is not my plan for tonight. this book world order covers roughly 400 years of diplomatic achieve a political and geopolitical military history and four or five continents. we have a little less than an hour when we finish dealing with the book we will talk about tax policy but what i want to do is
10:05 pm
take, doctor kissinger would you have written in to see its application today. anybody looking at the headlines headlines with look at your book and say what world order. the piece that you talk about where the states respect each other's territorial integrity, balance each other, don't interfere. you look at isys crosses national isis crosses national boundaries and with the united states on making serious to stop which helps protect this year he and dictator. you have afghanistan that you describe this as a country and as a group of tribes and the central motive power is resentment and vengeance. can you look at the world today and actually say yes i -- something like a world order is either possible or is that an old concept that is simply not applicable today?
10:06 pm
>> well, first of all, i think that there is no world order today. and perhaps if i tell you what introduced me to write the book, i was having dinner with a friend, professor at yale, and i was discussing various ideas that i had for writing a book most of which have to do with historical episodes for personalities. he said you've written a love of history. why don't you write something about what concerns you most at the moment. what concerns me the most at the
10:07 pm
moment was the absence of world order. the fact that for the first time in history different regions of the world are interacting with each other. in the classical period the roman empire and the chinese empire existed without any significant knowledge and acted without any reference to what the others were doing. so, the reality of the present. co. is that different societies with different histories are now part of a global system because they don't have an agreed concept of world order.
10:08 pm
so, i began with this piece for two reasons because that is the only formal system of world order that had been devised. and because it was the dominance in europe and because the europeans were part of the imperialism around the world as a concept but there was a unique aspect to the european experience. in most every other part of the world, whatever order existed was part of an empire. in china the idea that the state to balance each other didn't exist, and in the islamic world that didn't exist in that sense.
10:09 pm
europe is the only society with the sovereignty of states and the balance of their actions with each other was the need to produce international order. so that's why it started with that and then attempted to apply to many circumstances. but this is not a cookbook that you can read to see what the international orders will be. it is an attempt to tell you this is what we are up against now. this is the challenge that we have. and here are some ways of looking at it. but it does not say that i know what the end result of all of these conflicts and if these
10:10 pm
ambiguities some of which you describe will be. >> what i'm getting at is the westphalian peace after the 30 year war -- by the way, those of you that like to believe history repeats itself, remember the fight over the shape of the paris peace accord table? [laughter] 1648, the sensibilities of the various diplomats said they had an endless number of doors so that everybody could then provide the same important and i believe you described they had to walk -- >> at the same moment. the >> said some things don't change. but i think the more relevant part is that is it folly to look at a 360 or older set of conferences involving one small part of the globe and think that somehow has applicability to what we need in the 21st century
10:11 pm
where you have a power that bb statistics tend to rule the world and you may not have a chinese empire but you have a china that is reaching across the globe for resources and you have an international banking system that knows no national border. the question is in this age with a question for me is that even a model worth thinking about as relevant >> but the reason i started the westphalian system europe had begun a 30 year war very similar to what is now going on in the middle east. if every faction fighting, and some of them using the religious convictions of the geopolitical purposes. and at the end of this period --
10:12 pm
which may be one third of the population of central europe with conventional weapons so that is a massive effort. then the leaders got together on a number of principles which was the basic unit of international relations should be this state. the state that the countries should not intervene in the domestic affairs of other states. and that the borders in the international affairs began by
10:13 pm
attempting to have an impact on other societies. and some kind of international law would be created and that the diplomats should be called into existence. that never happened before. so the interesting thing is none of the people had an overwhelming statement but out of a separate state it's still a number of principles which for several hundred years governed the european relations and by us around the world. now, some of them still are of great consequence namely the
10:14 pm
basic unit of international relations should be the state and that if you conduct purely ideological basis and try to undermine the state that then the structure of the strained could be disappeared. now of course, the nonintervention set of principles, these were useful instruments. the dilemma of the president period is that several things are happening simultaneously. the state as a political organization is attacked in many parts of the world and the
10:15 pm
nonstate actors have power that used to be associated in the state. second, the economic organizations in the world and the political organizations of the world are not and the political organizations are based into the economic organization of the world attempts to achieve globalization which we could transcend the borders. so there are very many profound challenges today. what i'm attempting to do with the buck is to say here is this idea that was started. sooner or later we we will come to some concept without, there
10:16 pm
will be no principles to govern and there will be no restraint on the exercise of power. that is the big challenge because for us in america we have believed that our principles are the universal principles that everybody must exist, and i as an individual individual belief in the universal principles. but how to relate to other societies, that is one of the great challenges. >> that asked you point out in the book, there were some forces that project fundamentally the premise that you just outlined. the one that you point to with most is islamism as well as the airing and folks in charge to
10:17 pm
practice that. if i read your book correctly, the people who really run around, the theocrat, how many believe that it is destined to rule the world but it is the only legitimate way so the idea of saying if i read your book right well, you won't interfere here and we won't intervene there. that is at a basic level on islamic. doesn't that pose a rather difficult challenge? spinnaker that is a big debate that is going on inside of iran and the point i'm making is iran at this moment has prehistoric fossils in its own history. the experience of being a
10:18 pm
nationstate pursuing the normal or the traditional nationstates and actions such as more or less with bated and for a hundred years. the second model they have in history is that of an empire because for a great part of history byron was a great empire extending from the borders of what is today india and well into what we covered today and call the middle east extending to the edge of africa and which you have correctly described as the view of the present
10:19 pm
theocracy which is the islamic face and the governing guide of the iranian policy and therefore that the united states is implemented and the view that i express here is that iran has to make a choice. it doesn't have to announce the choice but it has to make a respectable choice which of these three models is following. and we have to remember one other thing about iran of all of the countries, iran is the only one, in the middle east anyway
10:20 pm
that does not give up its language or its culture and that has maintained the culture and language so it is always a distinct feeling of something special so at the end of november, we are going to become something the end of the combinations about the nuclear weapons and they will have to be judged by one's assessment about what the ultimate purpose of the group is. >> here's an argument i have heard about the optimistic way
10:21 pm
to look at iran. over time leaders in the country seemed threatening changed and you mentioned in the book in the forgotten part of history the 1957 and he makes a speech in which he says the fear that the nuclear power we could lose 700 million people and if we wind up with the communist world so be it i gather that they were not impressed by this argument. so then 14 years later in beijing things changed and the question is when you hear them talk as they do is is if it is useful to point to an example like the evolution of china and the fact that they are now at peace with each other even in northern ireland after 800 years of the violence should we take
10:22 pm
those examples and say let's see what happens maybe they will evolve out of the current theory >> the westphalian section was only to describe how the system came to be. no serious person thinks that you can't apply exactly the same principles. you can apply is to ask the question what are the basic units. how do they communicate with each other and what is it that they should try to achieve
10:23 pm
together. of course it is possible that this evolution occurs, but it is not possible that as an american leader you say that because everything involves why don't we just sit back and let it evil and we will see what happens. there are some issues that might be permissible. in the case of china the transformation which started out to be built billed as a model of revolution for the rest of the world this pattern continued
10:24 pm
until there is an ideological country towards the soviet union that caused the soviet union -- to move forward and the united states was the only available partner. i don't know whether i put this in the book or not, but the traditional way of thinking is shown with nixon and i in the
10:25 pm
first day in office had concluded that an attempt must be made to bring china into the international system. >> he wrote a piece for foreign affairs before he was ever elected. nixon wrote a piece in the foreign affairs magazine called asia after vietnam and there was a hint that there was a hint in the midst of the normal --. >> china was in the middle of the revolution, so it was very hard to know to get the dialogue started. but i wanted to mention is the cia wrote periodically about
10:26 pm
what they might do and they published the report and it is now available. they published the report in early july, 1971 while i was on my way to china which said and which listed all of the arguments i just made why china should look to the united states but they concluded with this cannot happen while he is alive. so, when that is the way to instead. today we learned could not have happened so fast. spec that's reassuring that the cia hasn't changed all that much. >> it was understandable.
10:27 pm
at any rate, then china and the united states had to deal with each other as great powers and if you read it they are all available now in the early conversations we were talking like to college professors about the concepts of international relations. we didn't go through the technical issues that divided us because we decided independently that at this point the most important quality to be achieved was can we understand what the other side is doing.
10:28 pm
so as we go into this world of three countries, china, russia and the united states maneuvering and cooperating with each other we are building a kind of international system and i would say that it was about three years before we really got to the day-to-day issues. >> there are so many areas cover but you raised one of the years so the critical step is to understand what the other person was thinking and it is a point that was made during the cuban missile crisis, the points that are given that john kennedy had against the impulses against advisers he kept trying to put himself in his shoes. so the question this raises is
10:29 pm
it seems to me that some of the united states biggest missteps i will use a polite word in foreign policy have come from precisely the fact that we haven't understood the train or the people in which we were trying to act. i mean most recently come into enough training to be partisan because i can think of both parties but it seems to me that the decision to go into iraq, which from your point of view using the nice things about bush, but it seems pretty clear to me that you regard the kind of notion that we would go into iraq and build a democracy that would spread through the middle east like a virtuous circle is really naïve if not worse. >> i forgot all about the bush. he did the honor of inviting me
10:30 pm
to discuss long-range international affairs with him. [inaudible] in the second term and so i developed a personal affection for him and i was impressed by his concerns, and there was criticism that i reported in my personal view which i normally did not do in the other chapters. but anyway, about the decision to go into iraq. from a security point of view come after the united states has been attacked by terrorists in the middle east, it was quite
10:31 pm
rational for the president of the united states to focus on a country that he genuinely believed was building nuclear weapons. it turned out to be wrong but it is also wrong to say that this was faith-based that he it had violated a cease-fire agreement on many occasions certified by the united nations and which might be and which might encourage a terrorist activity in the region. and in the clinton administration in 1998, the
10:32 pm
senate voted 98-nothing and the clinton side this was not the idea that bush introduced and i supported that part of it. where i disagreed with bush was that after saddam had been overthrown, that we had the capacity to make a democracy out of the country during military occupation. but not only was it islamic and therefore different approach to
10:33 pm
the notion of pluralism, but also in which the -- that is a profound division between the shia and the sunni part in a profound division between the kurds and the sunni and shia so i think that that is where it went wrong. >> it does seem to me -- pinnock and i explain why i think that. it seems to me that history has shown is that that has been coming yes, there was a lot of rhetorical notion that he has to come out when the decision was made to seem to me that history shows the people in the administration were determined to go to iraq and to help shape the evidence with the notion that they were involved in 9/11 and it was never close to the inaccurate and to take your point, coming your point that throughout the book they were
10:34 pm
accessed victims of delusions about the could do. but we are so pressed for time there are about 25 of the things i would like to talk about. >> the point is that the u.s. government cannot misunderstand the situation. the point is that the larger purpose is of the united states in the construction of the region. and there there are somethings we are able to do and other things we cannot do. >> that's why before i ask the next question i have to make the observation george bush and george w. bush second inaugural address proclaimed that it would be the policy of the united states to spread freedom and tierney everywhere in the world and i actually thought of you when i heard that because i thought if you were watching it at home you are throwing something at the television set because it is so exemplifies what you think is a dangerous if
10:35 pm
every inch of how the world works. >> the united states has to have three levels of understanding of the world. one objective definition of security that's not so vital to us that we will defend them or try to achieve them if necessary the second is objectives and security concerns which are important to us but we will try to achieve and this is where objectives and security concerns
10:36 pm
which we should not do because they are beyond our capabilities or value framework. so this is the sort of discussion that we need to have. >> if you have a question raise your hand we will getting make her come to you and as i said a year ago and i am sure you remember we have to come to a common understanding of a question is. [laughter] this is very important and i will be exceedingly undiplomatic like doctor kissinger in making sure that we have questions. so i could rest of the people with their hands raised. i'm sorry i get to call on them. i will get back to you i promise. >> thank you for the
10:37 pm
enlightening evening. doctor kissinger, if you were the national security advisor, what would you advise president obama to do with regards to sending troops to the middle east? >> you know, it's very hard. he tackled the question in another way. i have now lived so long that i have witnessed and in a way participated in five words. some as an active participant, some as an observer that the new key players. and if you look at the wars that
10:38 pm
the united states conducted since 1945, we have achieved our stated objective. the korean war was withdrawn and the others we withdrew from. but each of them started with great enthusiasm, great support and then at some point the only debate was how do you get out of it. and withdraw became the only strategy is the consensus. so what i would say to the president and the security advisor and what i think i would say to you is tell me how it's
10:39 pm
going to end and let's get a plan. i think it was correct when americans were on television for the purpose of intimidating the regions and its right to respond but we also need a strategy of how it would end and we are trying to achieve. [inaudible] should be the most important thing that he can do.
10:40 pm
>> to do standup? back in the 60s the u.s. supported the removal of some of the latin american government and establishment of law and nongovernmental and in some countries the dictatorship that we would consider barbarian by all means nowadays. when you look back today, do you think it was the right policy for the u.s. to support the establishment of those non- democratic apartment lacks >> i can't answer that question in the abstract until i know if government were talking about
10:41 pm
and whether you consider the description of this. >> it. >> chile, argentina, brazil. >> the trouble with that sort of debate is that when these ideas were first debated, probably as a result of the vietnam war it has become that the united states was conducting a moral policy and need not consider what serious people conducted and might do.
10:42 pm
many books have been written on this and there's no possible way that we can come to a conclusion about it. but it is when they overthrew the period every democratic party in chile supported, and every democratic party welcomed it. then when the new che ruled we didn't even know him. when he established an
10:43 pm
autocratic regime that is when the democratic party's in chile and then the practical problem for any american president faced in this situation is can you get involved in trying to overthrow any government which does not follow american preferences and their consequences for the united states. >> it's not as if we hadn't done that. in iran and guatemala who tried to overthrow castro. it's not as though the united states that have whatever system you want when it got to be tricky for the companies it seemed to me that america was happy to try.
10:44 pm
>> that was before my time. >> it was before my time, to back. >> it's very easy to sit in judgment. he would start from the assumption that the people are generally there because they think there's nothing more important they could do with their lives except to improve the security and the values of the country they then can come to their own conclusions but that's the idea that the united states likes and appreciates the
10:45 pm
practical. but they give you the experience that i know about. in 1973 egypt was showing signs of wanting to move out of the soviet orbit into the relationship with the united states. and from the point of view of the stability in the middle east and peace in the region, we strongly encourage that of course we knew that he was an autocratic ruler, but i thought of him as a great man who contributed tremendously to the peace process in the region and i wish that we had another set.
10:46 pm
it's not of any book in any one-year -- they have a finite number of problems that it's possible to deal with and to stir up the middle east when you don't know what the outcome will be and when it's maybe not at all democratic it's happened at the square. this is a question on the reflective party. each one was correct but simultaneously the united states would not be involved everywhere into to say however, they should
10:47 pm
overthrow the anti-democratic government. i understood what you said. i've i is laid out with the principle should be but i've seen enough of it to know that in the operation about the security and to the united states one has to make some allowance for the contingent and for the circumstance. hispanic on this site ask yes or. >> i do regret that the -- this is after 30 years in television. i think that -- having come here we would have all this time that we are down to the last question or so.
10:48 pm
one can argue with you there rise and success but in most of the troubled reasons it seems to be punishable by death in some cases. do you think this is a fundamental gap or a fundamental problem that is a long-term barrier to the true global world order? >> it is if first of all i agree with you as the correct definition of the american fundamental principles. it's not possible to separate truth and state because they are considered to be part of the
10:49 pm
same overriding philosophy and could see even in turkey they attempted to create a secular the secular state and it is now drifting back to the islamic concept. it isn't so much the decades in relations with china because china has no concept of international concept of religion. they have their national concept of pluralism but it's a different issue in china and it is with respect to the muslim world or to any border in which religion and the state emerge.
10:50 pm
>> let me see if we can get somebody all the way back in the last row. yes. -- drug dollars for derek jeter's last game by the way. [laughter] >> for all of the wonderful things that he has a tizzy over his career on the importance of statesmanship, and statesmanship wasn't really mentioned tonight. i wonder and ask the question that where can we learn how to be better statesman, where is the statesmanship being taught any place in our country that you could signal out as fulfilling that role that was developed in your own mind and in your own writing over the years particularly reflected in this book.
10:51 pm
>> think that is a very important question because statesmanship suggests of helping to lead your society from somewhere is to where it hasn't been. so it needs a combination of courage and character, and above all for the trend of the period. and if you look at the great estates it is now site is extremely problematic and continuous problem-solving as
10:52 pm
its principal objective. and technically, there are two other obstacles were two other problems that we face. our electoral process is getting so complicated it is so expensive that the leaders have to spend so much of their time on the processor and raising money and answering questions on television shows that it's not -- there isn't enough time to reflect about the direction. if you look in the 19th century, they had the succession of the
10:53 pm
congressmen, so is -- souls very all of whom whatever differences they had had some basic connections and they came from and lived in an environment in which the values were sort of taken for granted and therefore provided a basis into the creative thinking. i'm very worried about the impact of the way that history
10:54 pm
is taught and conceived. >> you know what occurred to me if you try to go to pakistan and approved to china with today's technologies and that he would have taken a picture of you and send it out and the whole secret would have been blown before you ever got to beijing. think about that. it's a different world. we have time for a couple more questions? we are done? okay. i'm sorry folks. [applause]
10:55 pm
>> we met with them and then we started inviting every columnist has a conservative to meet with richard nixon and give them time and we kept building the alliance with richard nixon and the conservative movement. he went out on his own in 1966 and campaigned in the 35 states and 80 congressional districts every single republican who
10:56 pm
asked in all 11 southern states all over the country working for the republican party and it was a move i see in my book because of the interest to do this it is also consistent with the pb leaved. to go through every district that we can so. we had some trouble of course mr. nixon had trouble with the rockefellers. nixon got up and had a press conference and did an event for john paul who eventually was the
10:57 pm
one guy that beat bill clinton for congress and i think bill clinton. nixon has this hearing and says i do not want to be disturbed i have a big speech tonight and i don't want anybody to disturb me. i said you've got it and i went down to my own room and i saw this huge fellow marching straight across the motel straight to mix in store and he was yelling hey, dick to mr. nixon who was sleeping. so i started running and he was pounding on the door and i thought that's the end of pat
10:58 pm
buchanan. this was the brother of nelson and david rockefeller that he was a great war hero. he was the youngest of the brothers that had been involved in the 50s that i'd been reading about the great fellow.
10:59 pm
next on booktv a critical look at private military contractors and argues americans
11:00 pm
should be concerned about her dependence on them. this is a little over an hour. >> good evening. thank you so much for coming. ..

44 Views

info Stream Only

Uploaded by TV Archive on