THE end of Cold War literally replaced the bipolar global existence with one that was, and is, unipolar in spirit and practice. The term ‘a new world order’ was heard often then and there was no dearth of interpretations. Less than a quarter of a century later, the world is again talking in similar terms.

When George Bush Sr. used the term “new world order” in his address to a joint session of Congress in 1991, he had also talked of the US’s role in leading “the world in facing down a threat to decency and humanity” and in promoting the “common cause to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind — peace and security, freedom, and the rule of law”. Henry Kissinger’s latest offering, World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History, is an unsaid expression of regret that the world today is missing these very values.

The book is a more than decent extension of discussions revolving around the need for some kind of global order. Kissinger has tried to look back — far back, actually — to be able to look forward. The constructs are his own with which one may differ, on various counts, but that takes nothing away from the intellectual depth of the discourse.

World Order has defined four ‘orders’ that have influenced the flow of history — European, Islamic, Chinese and the American. Taking the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 — “an accident of Europe’s history” — as the birth of the modern political world, the narrative has travelled right down to the emergence of Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

While making the observation that there is “no shared definition” of a system or understanding of what would be a state’s fair contribution to the global system, Kissinger has thrown up the challenge at the very outset: “Are we facing a period in which forces beyond the restraints of any order determine the future?”

It is in search of an answer to this key question that the author has journeyed back and forth in medieval and modern history to chart out a course for the future. With the Muslim and Chinese “concepts of order” geographically based in Asia, Kissinger has discussed them as a counterpoint to the European system, arguing that “as the East, it has never been clearly parallel to the West”. The reasons are several. Until the arrival of colonial powers, “no Asian language had a word for Asia”; “none of the peoples … conceived of themselves as inhabiting a single continent”; “there has been no common religion”; and “there is no memory of a common empire comparable to that of Rome.”

On the other side of Europe, across the Atlantic, the ‘New World’ was propped up by “Puritan settlers” who had set out to “redeem God’s plan with an errand in the wilderness” and to inspire “the world through the justness of its principles and the power of its examples”.

Of these four streams, Kissinger has discarded two for any meaningful contribution to future mechanisms. Europe is out because, one, it has started to move towards “pooled sovereignty” in the shape of the European Union, and two, it has little scope to respond when universal norms are flouted as it has “downgraded its military capacities”. The title of the chapter on Islam — ‘Islamism and the Middle East: A World in Disorder’ — is enough for an argument on this count.

This leaves the US and China as the “indispensable pillars” of whatever the new world order would be. Historically, writes Kissinger, both countries have exhibited “an ambivalent attitude toward the international system they now anchor, affirming their commitment to it even as they reserve judgment on aspects of its design.”

Besides, China, he continues, has not forgotten that it was originally forced to engage with the existing international order in a manner utterly at odds with its historical image of itself, and with the principles of the Westphalian system. The awareness on the part of China that it has “not participated in making the rules of the system”, though the book does not say it in as many words, has the potential to lead to a tug of war reminiscent of the bipolar world of Cold War era. Kissinger makes it sound like a leap in the dark when he says decisions will have to be taken by statesmen “before it is possible to know what the outcome may be.”

Having been the chief diplomat in critical times, Kissinger surely knows how to put forth the American case. The words he has used to describe the American use of atomic bombs against Japan represent a case in point. “American mobilisation in the Pacific eventually culminated in the use of two nuclear weapons … bringing about Japan’s unconditional surrender,” he writes of the world’s worst man-made disaster ever.

Likewise, he has used the US attack in Iraq to highlight a tragedy — the American tragedy — the “tragedy of a country whose people have been prepared for more than half a century to send its sons and daughters to remote corners of the world in defence of freedom but whose political system has not been able to muster the same unified and persistent purpose.” This surely is global diplomacy at its best; cunning tactics at its best, many would say.

He has made much of US economic assistance to promote “humane and democratic values” and has cited respect for “national sovereignty” as a cornerstone of “American consensus”, but Kissinger may not find people in different parts of the world enthusiastically nodding in agreement.

The American declassified documents themselves support the naysayer. For instance, a State Department memo to the White House as far back as May 1950 saw the potential of Pakistan “as a place from which US aircraft could operate”. After talking of the said potential in some detail, the memo hastened to add: “However, this should not be openly stressed since it negates our oft-expressed interest in helping the region for economic reasons.” Clear in mind; cut-throat in approach. This was a good 65 years ago.

The book’s absolute silence on the American policy of promoting militancy for its own good during the Cold War days is something that will put a few readers off, but the silence does speak and, together with words, does set the context for people to arrive at their own conclusions. And this is precisely what Kissinger has stressed: “History’s meaning is a matter to be discovered, not declared. It is a question we must attempt to answer as best we can in recognition that it will remain open to debate.” This is an absolute truth.

The reviewer is a Dawn staff member

World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

(HISTORY)

By Henry Kissinger

Allen Lane, USA

ISBN 978-0241004265

432pp.