WAS HENRY KISSINGER RIGHT AFTER ALL?

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TESSA SZYSZKOWITZ IN CONVERSATION WITH NINA KHRUSHCHEVA
WAS HENRY KISSINGER RIGHT AFTER ALL?
The name of the grandmaster of pragmatic realism in world of politics returns to the conversation

The fiasco of the US retreat from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021 has confirmed the uneasy feeling that attempts to bring democracy to the world do not always work. Even worse: manifestations of democracy may look laughable due to an increasing showing of weaknesses in the Western democratic systems. In America, a mob stormed the Capitol, in Poland and Hungary democratic institutions are more than „under pressure“. In many countries, Western democracy can hardly serve as an example any longer.
Autocratic leaders in Russia and China are watching the spectacle of Western failures and mishaps and seem confirmed that their own authoritarian ways are a better path towards stability and order. In this precarious moment the name of the grandmaster of pragmatic realism in world politics returns to the conversation: Was Henry Kissinger right after all? Can Western economic and political powers like the US and the EU find a way to talk to the Eastern challengers without lecturing them? Nina Khrushcheva says: “Putin or Xi Jinping should not be excused for their restrictive or destructive actions but time may have come for a new Kissingerian moment as unpleasant as it appears to many of us.”

Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at The New School, New York, Bruno Kreisky Forum Senior Fellow, co-author of “In Putin's Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire across Russia's 11 Time Zones”

Tessa Szyszkowitz, UK correspondent for PROFILE, Welt columnist Falter, author (“Echte Engländer. Britannien und der Brexit”), Senior Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute in London.