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Henry Kissinger turns 100
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody. Ian Bremmer here. Happy Tuesday to you after Memorial Day weekend, and I thought I'd talk for a bit about Dr. Kissinger since he's just turned 100 old. I'm pretty sure he's the only centenarian that I know well. And lots of people have spoken their piece about how much they think he's an amazing diplomat, unique, and how much they think he's a war criminal, unique. And maybe not surprising to anyone, I'm a little bit in between those views.
I have known him for a long time. I remember first time I met him was around 1994. I'd just come back from Ukraine and I introduced myself to him at some event in New York. And he was interested in what I had to say. And so why don't you come and have lunch with me? Which was kind of surprising since he didn't know me at all. And I thought, well, maybe he's just getting rid of me to talk to other people that are in line. But a couple days later, I find myself in his office having tea sandwiches and talking about Ukraine and the context of Russia relations, Europe relations and US. It could have been with a professor of mine or some colleague, the kind of discussion we were having. It didn't feel like he was being pompous or talking down to me. Spoke like he wanted to understand what I had learned from my relationships on the ground and my analysis and challenge it against his own. So that was pretty interesting.
Of course, I will tell you at that point, the reading that I had done of Kissinger was mostly in his own words on diplomacy and from some professors of mine at Stanford and the colleagues there that generally were very well-disposed to him. Since then, I probably sit down with him a few times a year and talk about global issues. And it's always interesting to hear his perspective. I would say that when it comes to broad international relations, he is of a very specific view and school, very transactional, very strategic. He's also of a certain time and place in the sense that he still doesn't believe that Europe really matters, doesn't accept that the European Union has become much stronger, much more capable as an institution than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago, than it was when he was saying, "Who do I call in Europe? Give me a phone number. They don't have one."
On the other hand, he's retooled himself considerably to truly learn about and understand artificial intelligence, and not just from a layman's perspective, but understand the policy implications. And to do that at the age of 100 is pretty extraordinary. I consider AI to be an utter game changer, geopolitically more important than any transformation I've seen on the global stage since I did my PhD some 30 plus years ago.
But for Kissinger to do that at 100 is quite something. And the fact that he has the wherewithal and the acumen to do that, I'm sure says a lot about why he still is put together as he is. There was an event that I did for the Young President's Organization, a few thousand folks, a few months ago. And this was on a big stage and Kissinger was going to give a masterclass, but they needed someone to engage with him for an hour, and he asked if I'd do it. So I said, "Sure." And what was interesting about it was, I mean, I sat in close to him so that he could hear everything I was saying clearly. But I mean, for an hour, this was a very serious conversation, frankly, as good as anyone else I've spoken with on my show over the course of the last several years, and again, doing that at 100. So put all of that together, you have to be impressed in the sense that it makes an impression upon you. Whether negative or positive, it's an impression that someone can do that at his age.
So that that's all of my relationship with him. And when I disagree with him, I say so, and do it more strongly privately than I do it publicly, in part because his willingness to respond to that usefully, publicly is fairly limited. And so you don't get value out of it. But that doesn't mean that I'm a big proponent of his worldview. And some of that is true today. A lot more of that is true, of course, historically. You learn a lot about someone by what they do when they're in a position to really do something, when they're in a position of power, when it matters. For example, I'd like to believe that when the chips were down and I had the ability to either keep my mouth shut or say something publicly about Elon Musk, and it would've been a lot more convenient to do the shutting your mouth, that I used my platform hopefully to make a more positive difference.
And I think that that's in a very small way. In a very big way of course, when you're National Security Advisor, Secretary of State, you have real power in your hands and you make decisions that destroy people. That says a lot about who you are. And I obviously can't in any way justify or support or align myself with a lot of the decisions that Kissinger has taken. And you look at Chile and the support for Pinochet and the coup overthrowing a democratically elected government, something that he strongly and individually supported despite lots of opposition inside the Nixon administration and from President Nixon at the time. I think about Kissinger's support for Suharto in Indonesia and the killing in East Timor. Over a hundred thousand innocent civilians dead from what now has an independent country, but at the time, was the Americans happy to privately support essentially a genocide. And that was a Kissinger policy. This was American exceptionalism. It was the opposite of that. And Vietnam, a lot of people take responsibility for the murderous interventions in Vietnam and not something that the Americans learned enough from. But specifically around Cambodia and a bombing campaign that was conducted in secret, which was denied for a long time by Kissinger. And again, over a hundred thousand civilians dead. And then one of the most murderous regimes we've ever seen in the 20th century comes in the Khmer Rouge because the country had been so destabilized by the Americans and by Kissinger's decision that led to the deaths of millions more.
So that's on his hands individually. And I guess you live to be 100 and you have that kind of power, few people are going to be proud of everything they did, but this is a very different kind of decision. I will say that part of meeting Kissinger turned me off from power. The fact that someone who had been a Harvard professor who I respected so much from the writings that I read of his, and then as you learn what that person, despite what they're like when they meet you, had done when they were in power, just turns you off from power. It makes you feel like that's something you don't want to be any part of. That was my initial sort of knee-jerk reaction. I think it's become more nuanced since then.
But you can't have a retrospective about one of the men that has had the greatest impact on American diplomacy and its influence around the world without recognizing just how negative some of that has been. And I will say that in today's very polarized environment, Kissinger is one of the people probably most responsible for the fact that when people around the world see that you're an American and do international affairs, they assume that your views of the world are equally high-handed, hypocritical, disdainful of the rights of human beings as humans. I mean, in some fundamental way, I'm probably the antithesis of realpolitik because I actually believe first and foremost that if there are 8 billion people on the planet, they all kind of count the same. And the fact that that means more to me than any individual citizenship is pretty much not any of what Kissinger did when he was Secretary of State, which is kind of sad for someone that's that bright and someone that has the capacity to do so much more.
So that's my view of Kissinger at 100. Probably a little different than a lot of what you've heard thus far on the topic, but for Memorial Day in particular, maybe a more appropriate read. So that's it for me. I hope everyone's well and take it easy this week.- Who is Tony Blinken? ›
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Where the US is gaining and losing influence
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here and a happy Monday from Vancouver. I'm here for the TED Conference. I've never done the main TED conference before, believe it or not, but giving a speech tomorrow and so came in a little early to meet some of all of these crazed public intellectuals and see what they have to say about the world. Should be kind of interesting, kind of fun.
But thought I would talk a bit about where US relations are with other countries in the world. I got a question from someone over the weekend that said, "Are there any countries where the United States actually has better relations today than they did ten years ago?" And I think this reflects, this wasn't an anti-Biden or pro-Trump sensibility, it's more the world feels like it's heading in a difficult direction, America losing influence. How do we think about that?
And it's mixed, right? It's mixed. It's very clear that China is much more commercially and economically powerful than it has been at any point in modern times. And it's also more willing to use its diplomatic leadership as well as the consistency of a single president, Xi Jinping, for eleven plus years now and going on however long he's alive. And so that I think makes people, especially that grew up in a time of more consistent global leadership from the United States, more discomforted or more excited, depending on their background. I think that also the United States is more, and we're looking it's some more divided, there are a lot of questions of why the United States would want to be the world's policeman, would try to drive global trade agreements when people inside the United States don't feel it necessarily benefits them. But the outcomes are a little more varied than that story would give you as a headline.
So for example, it is pretty clear that there's a lot of architecture being built by the United States with its allies in Asia. It's true that the US didn't get the Trans-Pacific Partnership done, and that was Obama's alleged pivot to Asia, never really happened. But now when you look at the Quad, you look at AUKUS, you look at the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework and you look at the CHIPS 4. And then you look at all of the alignment of countries that rely on the United States, particularly for national security in Asia and the backlash that you see from a China that is increasingly dominant militarily in some Asian security conflicts and Asian security areas. And as a consequence you have Japan, South Korea, improving their relations with each other and with the United States, you have the Australians much more aligned. You have New Zealand joining AUKUS as a non-NATO nuclear member and much more hawkish towards China than they would've been even two years ago, nevermind ten.
The Philippines pivoting into that direction, Indonesia concerned. So there are some countries that are really dominated by China and Asia. I'm thinking about Laos, Cambodia. But those aren't the countries with geopolitical heft. And for the rest they're more aligned with the United States. In Europe, you'd certainly say that most Europeans are more aligned with the US and yes, you'd probably even say that about France. Now, again, not necessarily Macron-Biden or Macron-Trump, given the personalities of all involved, but the fact that the French have voted along with every other EU country for ten rounds of sanctions against the Russians and to invite Ukraine into the EU and are decoupling their economies from Russia. That is a level of very significant alignment that we weren't seeing over the last five or ten years. And some countries in Europe may not like it, may be discomforted, but they don't necessarily have good alternatives.
And then Mexico and Canada where a level of economic integration, political integration and security integration with the US is just overwhelming. So those are all places where I see the relationship with the US as either as strong or getting stronger, getting more aligned, at least for the present and not really mattering hugely just on leadership, also mattering structurally with what's happening in the world. Then you have the Middle East and you have emerging markets around the world. You have the so-called Global South, and that's where I think the US is really and rapidly getting displaced, particularly in the Middle East where the US is not as focused on fossil fuels from there. And where the security relationship has been more challenged, Congress less interested in allowing the most advanced weapons to go to some of these countries. Some focus on human rights and just less engagement given how much more the Asian and the European environments are just sucking up all the airspace for the US diplomatically.
So there, I think China is displacing the United States in influence and countries in the Middle East are feeling like they need to do everything themselves. In terms of the Global South, also lots of countries that feel a level of hypocrisy from the United States, don't feel aligned, feel that the revealed preferences of US policy are really not supporting what these countries need. Whether it's in response to the pandemic or response to big inflation or response to the Russian invasion. Anything else, climate change, thinking that their relationship with the US is becoming less important. And meanwhile, globalization is less of a benefit for them as Americans focus more on nearshoring and on providing jobs for Americans in the middle and working classes. And this will even speed up with AI developments. Finally, and most dangerously, rogue states, North Korea, Russia, Iran, these are countries that have relations which are not just badly broken with the US but increasingly dangerous.
These are countries willing to be hostile and take risks with their relations with the US and allies. And China, which is not a rogue state, but is a country where there is zero trust between them and the US. And the relationship is at its worst it's been in decades. So if you were to put all of that together and say which world is more stable, definitely not where we are today. Is global power at largely shifting towards the US, away from the US or pari-passu, staying the same? I'd say it's very mixed, but slightly away from the US if you add all of those things up. Still, lots of areas where the Americans have a lot of power, but also a lot of areas where the world and its geopolitical balance is shifting far faster than the Americans and its allies can effectively respond to it.
So that's a little bit of the big picture for me. Seems like the thing one to talk about at TED. We'll do more of that tomorrow and I hope everyone's doing well. Talk to you soon.
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Nikole Hannah-Jones blames backlash against 1619 Project, CRT on the myth of US "exceptionalism"
Why is there such a strong conservative reaction to the 1619 Project and critical race theory?
For Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her work as creator of the 1619 Project, a big part of the problem is that we, "as Americans, are deeply, deeply invested in this mythology of exceptionalism.
"We really are indoctrinated into this idea that these intrepid colonists broke off from [...] Great Britain so that they could advance the ideas of liberty and individual rights. And to believe in that, then you have to downplay the role of slavery."
In other words, she adds, you must gloss over the fact that America has been "plagued by racism and inequality from our beginning."
What Hannah-Jones calls the white backlash against that narrative, she says, should not surprise us. Even after the horrific killing of George Floyd, which could have been an inflection point, Hannah-Jones laments, some politicians seized the opportunity to divide us even further on race.
"How do we divide these people who were finding common cause in Black equality? And you do that by saying, you know, we, we believe, you know, what happened to George Floyd was wrong, but it's gone too far now. Now they're trying to make you feel like there's something wrong with your whiteness. Now they're taking away your icons, they're knocking down your statues and they want to tell your children that your children are evil."
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Counter narrative: Black Americans, the 1619 Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones
"American exceptionalism" has outlived its usefulness: Anne-Marie Slaughter
"The 'American exceptionalism' that I grew up with, the 'American exceptionalism' of the Cold War…I do think has outlived its usefulness." Those words coming from Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former top State Department official under President Obama, indicate how much the world has changed in the past few decades. Her conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: How a "President Biden" could reshape US foreign policy