Kissinger and the Adversaries: the USSR and the PRC

Abstract

Kissinger’s advocacy for a strategy that would define the national goals worth fighting for and determine the degree of force appropriate for achieving them led many observers to hope that the Nixon Administration would develop and implement a global strategy that would achieve peace. But when that strategy was not immediately and explicitly outlined they charged that none existed. The Administration’s major policies — US-PRC rapprochement, US-Soviet détente, the Vietnam negotiations — appeared more as a brilliantly executed series of improvisations than a mosaic in which each of its parts is integral to the whole conception. Brilliant improvisations, however, can only emerge from a concept underneath the apparent spontaneity and this appears to be the case with Kissinger’s most important actions.¹ This chapter examines Kissinger’s impact on US policy toward the PRC and the USSR by analyzing the consistency between his beliefs regarding world politics and strategy and tactics for achieving national goals, and his policy preferences and/or actions as it became manifest in the rationale of policies in his memorandums to Nixon, in official statements, in his approach to issues, and in the agreements he negotiated with the PRC and the USSR. The impact of those beliefs on Kissinger’s behavior is also ascertained by examining their consistency with his policy recommendations since January 20, 1977.