Henry Kissinger's World Order: Informative - but a Window into the Unsettling Thoughts of the World Elite

It is now so long since Henry Kissinger made his clandestine trip to Beijing to set stage for Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to confer with Mao that Kissinger has moved from being one of prime actors on stage to one of America's elder statesmen. In addition to World Order, he has written thirteen books that have discussed variety of global issues, ranging from an historical analysis of Age of Metternich, to review of how United States became involved in and eventually withdrew from Vietnam, to an account of his years in White House.Such wealth of experience and scholarly achievement justifies our expectation that this book, as with any of his others, will contain much information and profound analysis. World Order doesn't disappoint on first of these counts. We will review much of his historical and geopolitical narrative. But at risk of being seen as boy who cried the emperor has no clothes, we (meaning this reviewer) will be willing, however reluctantly, to point out how greatly analysis lacks profundity. We will find that Kissinger says many things that don't hold up under examination. It would seem that best way to see his fantasies is not just as revelation of personal idiosyncrasy but as window into mindset of opinion elite of which he is part. The significance of this can't be overstated. If we see through filter of misshapen perceptions, we are not unlike people who were chained to wall in Plato's Allegory of Cave, witnessing not what is real but only shadows on wall.Our review of informational dimension of World Order will look primarily at what it tells us about several of aspirations for global that have existed historically. This will lead to an examination of what Kissinger himself hopes for as coming world order. We will critique his views as we go along, and concluding part of review will examine additional points, both strong and weak. The book includes much information about regional histories and issues in Europe, Islamic swath, and Asia, but it will be necessary to leave that for readers of book itself.Aspirations Toward World OrderAlthough we will see later than Kissinger is quixotic in what he himself desires for an international order, he gives much information about various claims that have been made asserting universal dominion by given culture or ideology. One of these was the Confucian concept of international order that envisioned a familial hierarchy with China as patriarch. After China was fashioned into single country in 221 B.C., elite China as the center of order and the sole sovereign government of world. Another was found in European/Christian conquest of Central and South America during crusading phase in which it exalted universal mission. Under eventual European colonial system which spread over much of globe, Europe represented dominant concept of order. (It is worth noting that Kissinger doesn't join now-fashionable condemnation of that colonialism. He recognizes ugly aspects, but he knows, too, that its better elements tried to lead kind of global tutorial, serving mission. He observes that in India Britain saw itself as neutral observer and civilizing uplifter of multifarious peoples and states, and notes Britain's role in leading global movement to abolish slavery, which we recall had, for so many centuries in virtually all parts of world, been an accepted part of human social organization.)Woodrow Wilson's aspiration to make safe for democracy League of Nations as replacement for what Kissinger calls earlier concert of powers. Wilson's thinking that all aggressive conduct among nations would be outlawed, with an international community coming together to oppose any violations, was reflected in Kellogg- Briand Pact in 1928. …