Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Wall Street Journal on Saturday that Washington has rejected traditional diplomacy and in the absence of a great leader, has driven the world to the precipice of war over Ukraine and Taiwan.
“We are at the edge of war with Russia and China on issues which we partly created, without any concept of how this is going to end or what it’s supposed to lead to,” he says. Could the U.S. manage the two adversaries by triangulating between them, as during the Nixon years? He offers no simple prescription. “You can’t just now say we’re going to split them off and turn them against each other. All you can do is not to accelerate the tensions and to create options, and for that, you have to have some purpose.”
On the question of Taiwan, Mr. Kissinger worries that the U.S. and China are maneuvering toward a crisis, and he counsels steadiness on Washington’s part. “The policy that was carried out by both parties has produced and allowed the progress of Taiwan into an autonomous democratic entity and has preserved peace between China and the U.S. for 50 years,” he says. “One should be very careful, therefore, in measures that seem to change the basic structure.”
Kissinger was heavily criticized earlier this year for suggesting Ukraine give up some territory to end this war.
As for Ukraine he believes the “die has been cast” and Ukraine has to be treated as a member of NATO.
Some might disagree with the last sentence.
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