Why Kissinger Should Support Obama

Both candidates want to be the “realist” that Kissinger was, but neither of them will be.

One of the campaign’s most striking images so far is of Sarah Palin sitting at the knee of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. But whoever is elected president, is it likely Kissinger will be disappointed. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama will govern as a foreign-policy realist after Henry’s heart.

When it comes to foreign policy, there are two McCains. On the one hand, he is attentive to competition between countries and maintaining the balance of power, in the realist style favored by Kissinger.

In his early career, McCain counseled caution in the deployment of American power, emphasizing the need to husband America’s resources until the point when her interests were directly engaged. He opposed Reagan’s efforts to extend the American military presence in Lebanon and was chary about American participation in other second-tier conflicts, such as the early phase of the Bosnian conflict and the American mission in Somalia.

Neither presidential candidate would usher in an era of Kissingerian realism. In his three a.m. moments, however, the old man may admit to himself that his own candidate is less realistic than his opponent.

McCain’s pragmatism was evident in his support for normalizing U.S.-Vietnam relations, despite his brutal treatment at the hands of his Viet Cong captors and the character of the communist regime in Hanoi.

On the other hand, McCain’s foreign-policy idealism became more pronounced after Washington’s victories in the Cold War and the Gulf War, and in response to the savagery of the Balkan wars. From the mid-1990s, McCain became more aggressive about the propagation of American values and more convinced of the link between freedom and force.

In 1999, he argued America should use her “primacy in world affairs for humanity’s benefit” and called for “rogue state rollback.” In the months after 9/11, he enthusiastically promoted the Iraq war.

McCain believes in muscling up to Moscow. It is impossible to imagine Kissinger thinking (let alone saying) during the Russia-Georgia crisis: “Today, we are all Georgians.” With this statement, McCain drew an implicit comparison with both 9/11 (after which Le Monde editorialized, “We are all Americans”) and the Cold War (in particular, John F. Kennedy’s declaration in 1963, “Ich bin ein Berliner.”) It would not be easy for a President McCain to square the circle of confronting Russia while cooperating with it to maintain the international order and meet global challenges such as climate change.

The Republican candidate’s idea of a “League of Democracies” is a particularly unrealistic proposal, for three reasons: regime type is not the only determinant of regime behavior; any international organization should, for the sake of its effectiveness, include states which cause problems as well as those that fix them; and few democracies are enthusiastic about joining such a league.