WASHINGTON -- "They'll have to carry me out of here," former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said to me. He was
referring to the vast enjoyment he has taken in his work since
leaving Washington. That work has entailed international consulting
and writing some very good books: his memoirs, and a splendid book
on diplomacy, pithily titled Diplomacy. He has also
continued to engage in diplomacy and my guess is that this is what
he was doing when he appeared in the news this week.
The New York Times published a picture of Kissinger
seated across from Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at a dinner
table in Mr. Putin's "country residence." Do you remember when a
Russian president's country residence was called a "dacha"? Is
there some arcane significance to the Times' substitution
of the commonplace term country house for the slightly sinister
dacha? And while pursuing such quiddities, what does Mr. Putin's
middle initial stand for? Could it possibly stand for Vladimir? Is
it possible that Mr. Putin's full name is Vladimir Vladimir Putin?
But I digress. Mr. Putin has been engaged in a "charm campaign,"
attempting to combat the criticism he has received of late for his
"autocratic" behavior.
Pursuant to this he had his visit with Mr. Kissinger, who
believes in steady diplomatic engagement with such erstwhile
hostile powers as Russia and China. Russia recently has sold arms
to such unsavory regimes as those governing Syria and Venezuela.
The Kremlin has gathered oil and gas production under government
control. And it has appeared to suppress domestic freedoms, most
notably freedom of the press. Hence those who recall Russia's long
history under czars and communist tyrants and suspect Putin of
being a creature of Russian history are suspicious that Russia is
reverting to some sort of tyranny that could present problems for
democratic countries nearby.
Kissinger, as he has demonstrated all his professional life,
believes in addressing such concerns with diplomacy. Vice President
Dick Cheney recently accused President Putin of reverting to the
old days of the prowling Russian Bear. When Mr. Kissinger was asked
about Mr. Cheney's remonstrance, a remonstrance that angered
President Putin, our former secretary of state affirmed his
"confidence in the Russian evolution." What a splendid choice of
words. For decades the West contended with the Russian Revolution,
which in 1917 established the Marxist-Leninist state that
terrorized the world for decades and murdered tens of millions of
its own countrymen, to say nothing of the repression when Moscow
extended its Iron Curtain into Europe.
In speaking of Russian "evolution," Kissinger reveals that he
has become in his venerable old age, an optimist. The criticism of
him when he was national security adviser for President Richard
Nixon and subsequently secretary of state was that he was a
pessimist. In those days the Marxist-Leninist threat to democratic
government was formidable. It was said that Kissinger and people
like him were in despair of rolling back Russian communism, and
hoped only to buy time. Well, maybe he was right -- at least at
that point in history. The communist regime was unworkable. Its
economic system was improvident. The will for freedom stirred even
behind the Iron Curtain. Communist tyranny, once thought by many
intellectuals (even George Orwell) to be the wave of the future,
went out with the tide.
Washington's policy of containing Russian communism through a
combination of steady military pressure and diplomacy worked. Now
we can speak of the Russian evolution.
In facing the new challenges to our national security today,
however, containment is going to be trickier. Those who have
attacked us represent no nation that has a capital or even
diplomats with whom to deal. They are Islamofascist and they employ
terror to achieve their impossible ends, a worldwide fundamentalist
Islamic regime. Thus today we practice not containment but
preemption. That is to say, according to the Bush Doctrine we will
send our military against any group that practices terror and any
government that harbors terrorists. The terrorists have placed
themselves beyond Mr. Kissinger's favored instrument, diplomacy.
With them there is nothing to negotiate. In fact there is no one to
negotiate with.
topics:
Vladimir Putin, Islam, Books, Military, Russia, Communism, Oil
