Does America Need a Foreign Policy?: Toward a Diplomacy for the 21st Century - Softcover

Kissinger, Henry

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0684855682 ISBN 13: 9780684855684

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2002

Synopsis

In this timely, thoughtful, and important book, at once far-seeing and brilliantly readable, America's most famous diplomatist explains why we urgently need a new and coherent foreign policy and what our foreign policy goals should be in this new millennium. In seven accessible chapters, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? provides a crystalline assessment of how the United States' ascendancy as the world's dominant presence in the twentieth century may be effectively reconciled with the urgent need in the twenty-first century to achieve a bold new world order. With a new Afterword by the author that addresses the situation in the aftermath of September 11, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? asks and answers the most pressing questions of our nation today.

About this title

Review:

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger asks a question in the title of his book Does America Need a Foreign Policy?--but there's really no doubt about the answer. That's not to say it shouldn't be asked: "The last presidential election was the third in a row in which foreign policy was not seriously discussed by the candidates," writes Kissinger. "In the face of perhaps the most profound and widespread upheavals the world has ever seen, [the United States] has failed to develop concepts relevant to the emerging realities." Kissinger tours the world in this book, describing how the United States should relate to various regions and countries. This is not a gripping book, but it is sober, accessible, brief, and comprehensive--and an excellent introduction to international relations and diplomacy.

Kissinger has opinions on just about every topic he raises, from globalisation (for it) to international courts (against them, for the most part). He supports a vigorous missile-defence system: "The United States cannot condemn its population to permanent vulnerability." He opines on peace in the Middle East: "Israel should abandon its opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state except as part of a final status agreement." His claims are often eye-opening: "There are few nations in the world with which the United States has less reason to quarrel or more compatible interests than Iran." He is especially critical of domestic politics interfering with America's international relations: "Whatever the merit of the individual legislative actions, their cumulative effect drives American foreign policy toward unilateral and seemingly bullying conduct." The media has been a special problem in this regard, as it zips around the world in search of exciting but ephemeral stories, which are "generally presented as a morality play between good and evil having a specific outcome and rarely in terms of the long-range challenges of history." Does America need a foreign policy? Of course it does, and Henry Kissinger has done readers a service by outlining what a good one might be. --John J Miller

Review:

Walter Russell Mead The Washington Post Book World An intellectual event: a tour of the foreign-policy horizon that is also a tour de force.

Richard Bernstein The New York Times President George W. Bush and his advisors would do well to read this book.

Stan Crock BusinessWeek Erudite...He seems to take the globe in his hands, turn it slowly, and explain everything he sees on each continent.

Michael Elliott Time Kissinger is once again helping to shape American thinking on foreign relations. This is the sixth decade in which that statement can be said to be true. Kissinger's new book is terrific...full of good sense and studded with occasional insights that will have readers nodding their heads in silent agreement.

Joshua Muravchik The Washington Times A quarter century after leaving office, Henry Kissinger remains our most luminous foreign policy thinker...[Does America Need a Foreign Policy? is] tough and compelling.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0684855682
• ISBN 13: 9780684855684
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 298