can lay claim to so much influence on the shaping of foreign policy over the past 50 years as secretary henry kissinger. a vital presence in international and national politics since the 1950s and named one of the foreign policy magazine's top 100 global thinkers, dr. kissinger served as the 56th secretary of state under presidents nixon and ford and as the national security adviser for six years. during that time he pioneered the policy of detente with the soviet union, orchestrated the opening of relations with china and successfully negotiated the paris peace accord which accomplished the withdrawal of american forces from vietnam for which he won the nobel peace prize in 1973.

and parenthetically, the gratitude of this young lieutenant in the united states army. thank you, mr. secretary. his countless other honors include the presidential medical of -- medal of freedom 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 ideological extremism. in it you'll learn about the westphalian peace and 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 secretary 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 a multii lateral group? -- multilateral group in and most importantly, what is the nature of the values we 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 native new yorker, i think most wonderful honors. in 1976 he was made the first honorary member of the harlem

globetrotters. [laughter] mr. kissinger will be -- dr. kissinger will be interviewed this evening by jeff greenfield, an acclaimed television commentator and author in his own right who lectured here 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'm only sorry i wasn't able to arrange the playing of "sweet georgia brown." but please join me in welcoming henry kissinger and jeff greenfield to the free library of philadelphia. [applause] >> when henry kissinger was named secretary of state, the

press asked him what shall we call you? professor kissinger? dr. kissinger? secretary kissinger? he replied, no, your excellency will do. [laughter] this is not my plan for tonight. this book, "world order," covers roughly 400 years of diplomatic geopolitical, military history and four or five continents. we have a little less than an hour -- [laughter] when we finish dealing with the whole book, we'll talk about tax policy. [laughter] but what i want to do is to take, dr. kissinger, what you have written and see its application today. i think anybody looking at the headlines would look at your book and say what world order? the westphalian peace that you talk about where states respect each other easter to have y'all integrity, balance each other out, don't interfere, you look

at isil which crosses national boundaries, you look at the united states bombing in syria to stop isil which helps protect the syrian dictator we want out, you have afghanistan which you describe really less as a country than a group of tribes whose central mode of power is resentment and vengeance. can you look at the world today and actually say, yeah, something like a world order is either possible or still -- or that an old concept that is simply not applicable today? >> well, first of all, i agree with you that there is no world order today. and perhaps if i tell you what induced me to write the book, i was having dinner with a friend, professor at yale, and i was

discussing various ideas i had for writing a book. most of which had to do with historical episodes and personalities. and he said you've written a lot of history, why don't you write something about what concerns you most at the moment? and what concerned me most at the moment is the absence of world order, the fact that for the first time in the history difference 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 other were doing. so the reality of the present period is that different societies with different histories are now part of a global system, but they don't have an agreed concept of world order. so i began with the westphalian peace for two reasons, because that is the only formal system of world order that has been devised. and because it was the dominant

system in europe and because the europeans as part of the imperialism brought in around the world as a concept, but there was a unique aspect to the european experience. in most, in every other part of the world whatever order existed was part of an empire. in china the idea that states fell into each other didn't exist. and in the islamic world, it didn't exist in that sense. europe is the only society where the sovereignty of states and the balance of their actions with each other was believed to produce international order and international law. so that's why it started with that and then attempted to apply

it to many contemporary circumstances. but this is not a cookbook you can read to say what the international order will be. it is an attempt to tell you this is what we are up against now. this is the challenge 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 these conflicts and these ambiguities -- some of which you described -- will be. >> what i'm getting at is the westphalian peace, which is 1648 after a 30 years' war. by the way, those of you who 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 were such that they had to build an endless number of doors so that everybody could enter by the same important or -- and i believe you describe they had to walk -- >> the same pace, the same moment. >> yeah. walk through the doors, so some things don't change. [laughter] the more relevant part though is, is it folly to look at a 360-year-old set of conferences involving one small part of the globe and think that it somehow has applicability to what we need in the 21st century where you have an islamist power that believes it is destined to rule the world, you may not have a chinese empire, but you have a china that is reaching across the globe for resources, you have a international banking system that knows no national borders. the question is, in this age -- the question for me is, is that even a model worth thinking about as relevant?

>> what -- the reason i started with the westphalian system is this: europe had begun a 30 years' war very similar to what is now going on in the middle east of every faction fighting every other, and some of them using the religious convictions for geopolitical purposes. and at the end of this period in which maybe a third of the population of central europe are killed with conventional weapons, so that's a massive effort. then-leaders got together on a number of principles which was that the basic unit of international relations should

be the state. that the state, that countries should not intervene in the domestic affairs of other states and that the borders of international affairs began by attempting to have an impact on other societies. and that some kind of international law should be created. and that diplomats should be, should be called into existence as permanent ambassadors in each other's countries. that had never happened before. and so the interesting thing is

none of the these people were overwhelming statesmen. but out of a suffering, they instilled a number of principles which then for several hundred years governed european relations and were brought by the europeans and by us around the world. now, some of them are still of great consequence; namely, the basic unit of international relations should be the state and that if you conduct foreign policy on a purely ideological basis and try to undermine the existence of the state, that then the structure of the restraint that could be created disappears.

now, of course, we are -- and so nonintervention, principles of conduct, these were useful instruments. the dilemma of the present period is that several things are happening simultaneously. the state as a political organization is attacked in many parts of the world, and nonstate actors are appearing that have power that used to be associated with the state. secondly, the economic organization of the world and the political organization of the world are not comfortable anymore. the political organization is based on the --

[inaudible] the economic organization of the world attempts to achieve globalization which means it transcends borders. so there are very many profound challenges today. so what -- i'm attempting to -- so what i'm attempting to do in the book is to say here is where this idea of order started. sooner or later we will come to some concept of order because without it there will be no principles to govern conduct x there will be no -- and there will be no restraint on the exercise of power. now, how we get there, that is a big challenge because for us in america we have believed that our principles are the universal principles that everybody must

accept. and i as an individual believe that there are universal principles. but how to represent the this to other societies -- to other societies who have comparable views, that is one of the great challenges we face. >> but as you point out in your book, there are some forces that reject adultly the premise you just outlined. the one that you point to with most alarm is islamism and particularly as the iranian folks in charge practice that. if i read your book correctly, the people who really run around, the three accurates -- theocrats, believe that islam is destined to rule the world, it is the only legitimate way. so the idea of saying to iran, if i read your book right, well, you won't interfere here, we

won't intervene there, on a basic level, that's un-islamic. i mean, doesn't that pose a rather or difficult challenge -- >> that is the big internal debate that is now going on inside iran. and the point i'm making is iran at this moment has three historic models before it. in its own history. the experience of being a nation-state, pursuing normal or traditional nation-state actions which is more or less what they did under the shah and for a hundred years before that. second model they have is that of an empire. because for a great part of its

history, iran was a great empire extending from the borders of what is today india and each into india -- and even into india well into what today, covering parts of what today would be the middle east and extending to the edge of africa. and third is the experience of khomeini which you have correctly described and whichst the view of the present theocracy which is that it's the islamic face, it's the governing guide, should be the governing guide of iranian policy and, therefore, of the united states. it's a permanent enemy. and the view 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 perceptible choice which of these three models it is following. if it -- and one has to remember one other thing about iran. of all the countries that were conquered by islam, iran is the only one in the middle east anyway, the only one that did not give up its language, nor its culture and that it maintained the iranian culture and language. it did not adapt, adapt arabic. so it's always a distinct feeling of something special about iran. so at the end of november, we are going to be confronting --

we as a country -- the end of the culmination of the negotiations about the nuclear weapons. and they will have to be judged by one's assessment about what the ultimate purpose of the iranian governing group is. >> so here's an argument i have heard about the optimistic way to look at iran. over time leaders and countries that once seemed really ominously threatening change. you mention in your book a forgotten part of history, 1957 mao tse-tung goes to moscow, and he makes a speech saying, you know, this fear about nuclear war, we're a big country, and if

we wind up with a communist world, so be it. i gather the soviet union was unimpressed by this argument. >> [inaudible] >> they took notice of this. so 14 years later you're in beijing, and things change. and the question is, when you hear the iranians talk as they do, is it useful to point to an example like the evolution of china, the fact that long enemies are at peace with each other, that even in northern ireland 800 years of convenience at least has eased? should we take those examples and say, all right, let's see what happens in iran? maybe they will evolve out of their, out of their current theory cans and come to a more -- theories and come to a more westphalian view of the world? >> well, you know, westphalian

section was only to describe how an international system came into being. >> okay. >> no serious person thinks that you can apply exactly the same principles. what you can apply is to ask the question what are the basic units that are in touch with each other? and by what methods should they be in touch with each other? and how do they communicate with each other? and what is it they should try to achieve together? now, it's, of course, possible that this evolution occurs. and, but it is not possible that as an american leader you'd say because everything evolves, why don't we just sit back and let it evolve? [laughter] and we'll see what happens.

with respect to some issues, it's maybe permissible. in the case of china, the transformation of the conduct of china which started out by mao to be built as a model of revolution for the rest of the world, this pattern continued until there was a conflict, practical and ideological conflict with the soviet union which caused the soviet union to move 42 divisions to the chinese border. and then mao looked at this as a practical problem of statecraft.

how do you, do i protect my state against this? and the united states was the only available partner. i don't know whether i put this in the book or not to. the persistence of the tradition always of thinking is shown by this episode. in -- nixon and to some extent i from the first day in office had concluded that an attempt must be made to bring china into the international system. >> as i recall, he wrote a piece for foreign affairs before he was ever elected that hinted at that. >> i beg your pardon? >> nixon wrote a piece in foreign affairs -- >> yes, before he was elected. >> there was a hint in the midst of the normal -- [inaudible] that this was on his mind. >> absolutely.

and the title was the middle of the cultural revolution. so it was very hard to know at what door to knock even to get a dialogue started. with but the, what the internet i wanted to mention, the cia wrote periodic reports about -- [inaudible] and they published a report, and this is now available, they published a report in early july 1971 while i was on my way to china -- which they didn't know know -- [laughter] which said, which said, which listed all the arguments i've just made of why china should look to the united states, but

they concluded by saying this cannot happen while mao is alive. so one has to wait til mao is dead. today we know that it could not have happened so fast if he was not alive. >> well, that's reassuring that the cia hasn't changed all that much. [laughter] >> well, it was understandable because, at any rate, then china and the united states had to deal with each other as great powers. and if you read -- and they're all available now -- the early conversations say on my trip to china, we were talking like two

college professors discussing abstract concepts of international relations. we didn't go through any of the technical issues that divided us. why? because both of us decided independently that at this point the most important quality to be achieved was can we understand what the other side is doing. so as we go into this world of three countries -- china, russia and the united states -- nobody against each other, cooperating with each other. so we were building a kind of international system, and i would say it was about three years before we really got to

deal with the day-to-day issues. >> there's so many areas to cover and so little time, but you raise one of the areas i want to -- the critical, the critical step was to understand what the other person was, how the other person was thinking. it's a point that was made, i know, during the cuban missile crisis. the points that are given to john kennedy were that against the impulses of some of his advisers, he kept trying to put himself in khrushchev's shoes. so the question that this raises is, it seems to me that some of the united states' biggest missteps -- i'll use a polite word -- in foreign policy have come from precisely the fact that we haven't understood the terrain or people in which we were trying to act. i mean, most recently -- i'm not trying to be partisan, because i can think of both parties -- but, certainly, it seems to me that the decision to go into

iraq, which from your point of view you say nice things about bush. you did serve republican presidents, but it seems pretty clear to me that you regard that kind of notion that we would go into iraq, build a democracy, it would spread through the middle east like a virtuous circle as kind of really naive, if not worse. >> well, i, i forgot about bush. he did me the honor of inviting me to discuss long-range international affairs with him without any -- [inaudible] at fairly regular intervals in his second term. and so i developed a personal affection for him, and i was, i was impressed by his concerns.

and there was some criticism that i recorded my personal view of bush which i normally did not do in the other chapters. well, anyway, now about the decision to go into iraq. from a security point of view, after the united states had been attacked by terrorists based in the middle east, it was quite rational for the president of the united states to focus on a country that he genuinely believed was building nuclear weapons. it was, turned out to be wrong, but it is also wrong to say that this was fake.

they genuinely believed this. that had violated a ceasefire agreement with us on many occasions, certified by the united nations and which might be a base, which might encourage terrorist activities in the region. and it's also wise to remember that in the clinton administration in 1998, the senate voted in a nonbinding resolution 98-0 that saddam should be removed and that -- and did clinton sign this? so this was not a novel idea that bush introduced. ..

that not only was islamic, and therefore eat different approach to the notion of pluralism, but also in which there was a profound division between the shiite and sunni and profound division between the kurds and the sudanese and the cso that is

what went wrong. >> with respect it does seem to me. >> i explain why i think that. >> it does seem to me what history has shown is there was a lot of rhetorical notion that saddam has to come out but it seems that history shows the people in that administration were determined to go to iraq to help shape the evidence that they were involved with 9/11 and was never close to the enactment and to take your point that your point that they were at best victims of delusions' of what they could do but we are so pressed for time that there are 25 of the things i would like to talk about. >> the president cannot misunderstand the situation.

the point is what the larger purposes of the united states -- sometimes able to do and other things we cannot do. >> i have to make this observation. no where in your book, george bush and george w. bush's second inaugural address proclaimed would be the policy of the united states to spread freedom and end tyranny everywhere in the world. i actually thought of you when i heard that because i thought if you were watching at home you were throwing something at the television because it is so exemplifies what you think is the dangerous misapprehensions of how the world works. >> united states has three levels of understanding of the

world. one, objectives or definitions of security are so vital to us that we try to achieve them if necessary. can the second is objectives and security concerns which are important to us but which we will try to achieve only without, and the objectives and security concerns which we should not do. the capabilities or value framework. so it is the sort of discussion we need to have.

>> your turn. if you have a question raise your hand. we will get the mike to you and i am sure you all remember we have to come to a common understanding of what a question is. [laughter] >> very important and i will be exceedingly undiplomatic in making sure we have questions. so thanks to the people -- i get to call. let's start at the front row. i will get back to you, i promise. >> thank you for an exciting evening. dr. kissinger, if you were national security adviser, what would you advise president obama to do with regard to sending troops to the middle east?

>> you know, it is very hard -- let me tackle the question in another way. i have now lived so long that i have witnessed and participated in five wars, some as an active participant, some as an observer who knew the key players. if you look at the five wars that the united states conducted since 1945, we have achieved our stated objective in only one. the korean war was sort of a

draw and the other three was moving through but each of them started like this one now with great enthusiasm, great public support and then at some point the only debate was how do you get out of it? and withdrawal became the only strategy accepted as a general consensus. what i would say would be, what i say to you, tell me how it is going to end and tell me -- let's get a plan. i think it was correct, when americans are murdered on television, for the purpose of

intimidating regions, ourselves, it is right for us to respond but we also need a strategy of how to end and what we are trying to achieve. and i will tell him about public speeches, should be easy most important thing that he can do. >> half way back. could you stand up? it would project a better. >> back in the 60s, the removal of some of the lack of american government and establishment of multiple governments in the

region and in some countries dictatorships that we would consider barbarian by all means nowadays. do you think it was the right policy for the u.s. to supports the establishment of those governments, and -- >> i can and answer the question. and july know what government you are talking about. what do you considers the american establishing, the correct description of it. >> mike gentine no, brazil --

>> the debate is -- when these ideas were first debated, as a result of the vietnam war, it has become axiomatic that the united states was conducting immoral foreign policies, one need not consider what serious people conducted serious policies might do. the chilly think, many books have been written in this but no possible way to come to a conclusion about it.

there is one fact. when the revolution that overthrew -- every democratic party in chile supported it and every democratic party welcome that. than those we did not even know him. when pinna shea established an autocratic regime, that is when the democratic party's in chile subject and then the practical problem for any american president faced with the

situation, can you get involved in trying to overthrow any government which does not follow american preferences for the united states. >> not that we hadn't done that. iran and guatemala we tried to overthrow castro. not as though the united states that have whatever system you want, when it got to be tricky for the season american companies but america -- happy to try. >> that was -- that was before my time. >> it was before my time too. >> it was very easy to sift

after the un. if you start with the assumption that people in high office i generally there because they think there is nothing more important they could do with their lives for security and values from the country. this idea that the united states, it faces a practical problem. let me give you -- experience i know about. in 1973 egypt -- wanting to move out of the soviet orbit into a relationship with the united

states. from the point of view of stability in the middle east and we strongly encourage it. of course we knew that was also basically autocratic ruler but think of him as a great man that contributed tremendously to the peace process in the region. i wish we had another set to deal with everything. i was not in office at that time. any particular -- in any one year the american president and security adviser secretary of

state, the number of problems it is possible to deal with and stir up the middle east if you don't know what the outcome will be and when the outcome maybe democratic, it happened after tahrir square which we did support, this was a question. it doesn't say every decision was correct but simultaneously say the united states is not being loved everywhere and however they should overthrow the democratic and anti-democratic government. i understand what you would say. i am not saying america has always acted consistently. i laid out what i think the

principle should be but i have seen enough of it to know that in the operation about the security of the united states, to make some allowance for the circumstances. >> on the other side, yes, sir. i do regret after 30 years in television, the thought would come here, all this talk, down to our last question or two. >> the separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of western democracy. it fueled the rise and success yet in most troubled regions of the world it seems to be inherently punishable by death in some cases. do you think this is a fundamental problem that is a long term barrier to true global

world order? >> first of all i agree with you, the correct definition of american fundamental principles in the islamic religion it is not possible to separate church and state because they are considered to be part of the same overriding philosophy in which they attempt to create a secular state. it is now drifting back to its islamic concept. isn't so much the case in

relation with china because china had no concept, no national concept of religion. it also has no national concept of pluralism but a different issue is in china than it is with respect to any order in which religion and state are merged. >> see if we can get somebody all the way back in the last row. yes. $500 for derek jeter's last game. >> this will be short. i wanted to thank his excellency for all of the wonderful things that he has had to say on the

importance of statesmanship. and statesmanship wasn't really mentioned tonight and i wonder and ask the question, where can we learn to be better statement? where is statesmanship being talked any place in our country you can signal loud as fulfilling that role that was developed in your own mind and your writing over the years and particularly reflected in this book? >> that is a very important question because statesmanship consists of helping to lead society from where it is to where it hasn't been.

it needs a combination of courage and character and above all a sense for the trends of the period. and if you look at the great statesman, they have generally -- in our society, is extremely pragmatic and considered problem solving rather than a reflection of historical evolution. as its principal objective. two other absolute problems we

face. our e led dorr process is getting so complicated and so expensive that the leaders have to spend so much of their time on the process of relating money and questions on television shows. enough time to reflect dereliction of the future. if you look at prison in the nineteenth century, they had a succession of prime ministers in salt birdie for almost a century. all of whom, what difference is they had had some basic convictions about the role of

prison, the actions prison should take and the reason for it was could they came -- they lived in an environment in which these values were taken for granted. and therefore provided a basis for creative thinking. i am very worried and i said so in this book, about the impact of the way history is taught and conceived, on the ability to develop these. >> you know what occurred to me? if you tried to go to pakistan and through to china with today's technology somebody would have taken an iphone picture of you and tweeted it

out and the whole secret would have been blown before you ever got to beijing. think about that. it is a different world. time for a couple more questions. we are done? okay. look. i am sorry, folks. can we thank dr. kissinger? [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching booktv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you

see here online at booktv.org. booktv covers hundreds of other programs throughout the country all year long. here is a look at some of the events we will be attending this week. look for these programs to air in the near future on booktv on c-span 2. we are at the john f. kennedy presidential library in boston for historian richard norton smith's recount of the life and political career of nelson rockefeller. in the university of california santa barbara constitutional scholar erwin shcharansky contends supreme court justices regularly allowed their own biases to guide how they will. to is a pulitzer prize-winning biologist edward wilson comments on what makes humans profoundly different from other species at the free library of philadelphia. in ucla, meghan francis exa