In a lengthy and important essay in Foreign Affairs about “detente” with the Soviet Union, historian Niall Ferguson, who is completing the second-volume of his biography of Henry Kissinger, mentions Richard Nixon just once. And the photographs accompanying the article show Kissinger with President Gerald Ford, not Nixon. Yet, as Kissinger himself has sometimes acknowledged, the real architect of “detente” with the Soviet Union was not Kissinger; it was Richard Nixon.
Ferguson may be too sanguine in his belief that the ’70s version of detente might work with China.
As Nixon’s top foreign policy adviser, Kissinger, of course, played a large role in the formulation and implementation of detente, and Ferguson as Kissinger’s biographer quite naturally focuses on the diplomat’s role and subsequent perspective on that policy. But it is a historical stretch to claim, as Ferguson does, that Kissinger “pioneered what would become his signature policy: the easing of tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.” It was Nixon, not Kissinger, who “pioneered” the policy of detente, and detente was not Kissinger’s “signature policy”; it was Nixon’s. (READ MORE from Frank P. Sempa: Bob Costas’ Definition of ‘Disgraceful’: Trump)
Kissinger characterized Nixon’s pattern of thinking about foreign policy as “seminal.” Nixon approached foreign policy in grand strategic terms and based his decisions on a comprehensive global worldview. Kissinger concurred with that approach, but as he consistently acknowledged, in the shaping and implementation of foreign policy the final decision was always Nixon’s. Anyone who doubts this need only read some of Nixon’s post-presidential books, including his memoirs, RN, which are unparalleled among U.S. presidents for their strategic insights and foreign policy analyses. They are comparable to Kissinger’s own books in their interpretations of international affairs.
Ferguson’s essay most likely draws on the research for his forthcoming second-volume of the Kissinger biography, which will deal with Kissinger’s life and career from 1969, when he became Nixon’s national security adviser, to his death this past November. Like Nixon, Kissinger’s post-government career included numerous books and articles that informed and explained international politics from both historical and contemporary perspectives. And like Nixon, Kissinger’s contributions to the understanding of American foreign policy continued almost until his last days.
Ferguson’s essay is a nuanced assessment of detente. Detente was not the surrender to the Soviets that some on the far right claimed. Nor was detente a version of the 1930’s appeasement policy that other conservative critics claimed at the time. Instead, it was one aspect of Nixon’s triangular diplomacy that sought to position the United States closer to the Soviet Union and China than either communist power was to each other. Combined with the opening to China, detente sought to exploit the widening Sino-Soviet split to America’s geopolitical benefit. And it worked.
During the 1970s and 1980s, China became a de facto ally of the United States vis-a-vis the Soviet Union. As Ferguson notes, detente accomplished this without triggering a world war. Detente’s nadir was in the late 1970s, when the Carter administration pursued it with abandon despite what the Soviets called the shift in the “correlation of forces” in their favor. Both Nixon and Kissinger criticized Carter’s version of detente and applauded Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” approach in the 1980s that, however, included aspects of the Nixon-Kissinger detente policy. I vividly recall watching (on television) the recently sworn-in President Ronald Reagan descending the stairs of Air Force One clutching a copy of Nixon’s book The Real War. (READ MORE: Global Order and Stability Are More Important Than Democracy)
Ferguson believes that the hard-headed detente of the early 1970s might work to deter China from attacking Taiwan and avoid war between the U.S. and China. But he notes that today the “correlation of forces is a good deal more favorable for Beijing than it ever was for Moscow.” Not only is China a more multi-dimensional challenger today than the USSR was in the 1970s, but back then China for its own selfish reasons helped the United States balance Soviet power on the Eurasian landmass. Today, through diplomatic errors extending back to the Clinton administration, China and Russia are closer to each other than either of them are to the United States.
Ferguson may be too sanguine in his belief that the ’70s version of detente might work with China. And it is doubtful that the foreign policy practitioners in the Biden administration could pull it off. There are no Nixons or Kissingers in the corridors of power at the White House. What Kissinger wrote in his book Diplomacy about Nixon is still true today: “No American president possessed a greater knowledge of international affairs.” Nixon, Kissinger noted, “had an uncanny ability to grasp the political dynamics of any country that had seized his attention.” Nixon’s understanding of geopolitical realities,” Kissinger continued, “was truly remarkable.” He possessed, in Kissinger’s view, “powerful analytical skills and extraordinary geopolitical intuition [that] were always crisply focused on the American interest.”
Ferguson’s essay in some respects repeats the errors of those historians and scholars who credited Secretary of State John Foster Dulles for formulating and implementing the foreign policy of the Eisenhower administration, when in fact Eisenhower was in charge the whole time. It wasn’t until scholars like R. Gordon Hoxie and Fred Greenstein wrote revisionist works about the Eisenhower presidency that we appreciated Ike’s impressive geopolitical achievements. Kissinger clearly played a key role in formulating and shaping the detente policy in the early 1970s — but it was Nixon’s policy, and it is Nixon who deserves the most credit for its achievements.
