There are historical parallels that are approximate and therefore difficult to apply to specific events, and then there are parallels whose application, so to speak, shapes events, either by not letting the past repeat itself or by being inspired by it and simply letting it happen.
And then there are symbolic parallels reminiscent of what Marx writes about in Louis Bonaparte's 18th Brumaire: Once as tragedy, once as farce. The passing of former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger during the conflict in the Middle East coincides with this type of parallel that finds its affinity with the same historical perspective as Kissinger himself, inspired by Oswald Spengler, developed during his academic years but which he, as an active policymaker, did his best to escape - the balance between historical necessity and the freedom to, mildly put, shape this necessity according to one's own inspirational desires.
That Kissinger cannot be reduced to the circumstances surrounding Vietnam is agreed upon by both his critics and those who have been inspired by him. While critics argue that his destructive effects are much more extensive than Vietnam, the latter rightly point out that Kissinger is more than the years in the White House, that he taught at Harvard for two decades, and that after his years in the public service, he served as an advisor to both companies and leaders of various states to create a better world.Even though critics acknowledge that Kissinger was influential even after his years in the White House, it is questionable whether a better world was what he sought, they argue.
In his dissertation written in the early 1950s, Kissinger returned to the years just after the French Revolution to examine the challenges faced by statesmen of that time and the measures they took to restore peace. He analyzed the challenges characterizing the revolutionary process and how to combat the revolutionary who challenges stability. His framework for addressing the subject was not entirely uncontroversial. Kissinger was a realist, meaning that he did not primarily think in terms of freedom and rights, but possibly under what circumstances freedom and rights are possible.
What is important to remember is that Kissinger thinks in architectural terms, in a context where many different living parts in the form of states exist and serve a certain purpose. The policymaker's task is to organise this context in a way that each participant, depending on their position, can strive for their own goals, often tied to their history and geographical location. No order is perfect, and no ideals are universal, except perhaps in thought. Kissinger does not aim to create an ideal order with freedom and rights as guiding principles. On the contrary, he criticises such ambitions but starts from the perspective that it is an important part of reality to deal with and try to master. All rights and aspirations have their limits (a key word in Kissinger's vocabulary), if for no other reason than not everyone has the same starting point or interprets circumstances in the same way.
In the liberal worldview, all states are equal. In reality, they are equipped with different characteristics articulated in terms of their achievements, both material and moral. In such a world, the policymaker cannot assume the reality that he or she wants to bring about but how it really is. Such a world has always been composed of stronger and weaker states, and the strong, much thanks to their achievements, have much more influence. This is evidenced by the UN, which, no matter how liberal and democratic it may be, takes into account a number of conditions, not least military.
This is the reality-based side of his thinking. Another is the emotional side, which he insists (for better or worse) works and should work to ensure that freedom, as each state perceives it, does not submit to a reality where only power finds its application. The objective reality finds its subjective expression in the parts of the whole where freedom for each state is to find space for its aspirations, and those with the greatest ability to express it are the great powers. For this reason, much of his attention is focused on establishing an order where none of the great powers is dissatisfied enough to challenge the entire order. The order that he not only studied the background of but also actively adjusted and renewed is what was recently called Pax Americana.
Then, there is also a personal aspect to him that should not be underestimated: It is the tragic side whose origin we do not need to go into here but which he carries within and gives shape to all his perceptions, whether they are about ideas, orders, or what is possible. The rational counterpart of the tragic side is the limits of all things - that no societies survive forever and that it is therefore the statesman's responsibility, in an environment that rarely forgives indulgence, not only to struggle to justify his state's justification for existence but also primacy. Given Kissinger's position, he also had the advantage of being able to consider the vulnerability of other states and not always strive to assert himself at their expense but to act nuanced enough to at least consider their demands.
Many have argued that Kissinger, while talking about diversity among states, always prioritised U.S. interests. But it was only a contradiction in academic reflection, what would be best for the world order. In reality, no leader can morally justify voluntarily relinquishing power other than in relative terms.
His view of history combined with his tragic view of life (from which the view of history originates) foreshadowed his question to then-Chinese Premier Chou En-lai. "What was the significance of the French Revolution?" The background to the question is that the U.S. at that time was in a stage where it had left its material superiority behind and had to pursue its position rationally, more restrained and precise. The country would remain strong for the foreseeable future but in a much more relative sense and to a decreasing extent. It was with this idea in mind that he gave President Nixon a copy of Spengler's "The Decline of the West."
The view was not new in itself but inspired by Spengler, who in his great work argued that the French Revolution was the turning point in European history. The aristocratic view of inner life gave way to the overwhelming triumph of rationality, the Metternichian sense of solidarity with the surroundings gave way to Bismarck's much less sensitive claims to national interests, a claim that his less affluent successors had difficulty navigating. It ended with the First World War, a war that Europe has never recovered from.
A similar fate, but in other forms and in a completely different world, befell the U.S. with the Vietnam War. The war, as a symptom, coincides with the U.S.'s turning point from the general perception that the country was a liberator to an increasingly overbearing one, a thought that found its definitive validity with the failures in Iraq and later Afghanistan. Very little indicates that the U.S. will meet the same fate as the Soviet Union once did, but it is clear that the country must submit to circumstances it no longer controls. This is evident in the failure in Ukraine and almost certainly also the conflict in the Middle East, unless it develops into a regional war. Where such a scenario ends, no one can probably predict.
A tangible reality, to relate to the symbolic parallels, is the conflict in the Middle East, which so far remains within a narrow framework. Both parties in this conflict, Netanyahu's government and the leadership within Hamas, seem to have been dissatisfied with the status quo. Netanyahu's government waited for an opportunity to advance its positions, while Hamas's actions indicate that the group no longer intended to tolerate the situation in Gaza and the West Bank, where sporadic uprisings against Israeli presence had occurred. Also not to be forgotten were the internal Israeli contradictions, Netanyahu's attempts to push through legal changes. Today, we see massive Israeli bombings in response to Hamas's initiatives, a situation reminiscent of U.S. bombings of Vietnam and Cambodia in the early 1970s.
Here are the similarities between the challenges faced by Nixon and Kissinger with Netanyahu's government. A superior power, sensitive to its own internal issues, in conflict with a lesser power whose entire strategy seems to be to sacrifice its population to provoke a response from the outside world.
So who is Netanyahu? If we momentarily overlook the complexities and see him as an expression of Israel's will, his frustration coincides with some of the problems Kissinger develops in his view of history. How will the country overcome its precarious situation, its geographical (and demographic) vulnerability and therefore necessity, with the freedom to gain space to clarify its potential, with the fact that what truly motivates it is not security, as Kissinger writes in his dissertation on all mortal beings, but immortality?
Much has happened since the Jewish state fought for its continued existence. Since at least the beginning of the 1970s, the country has become accustomed to being superior militarily, politically, and economically not only to the Palestinians but also to all its neighbours in combination. Of course, the U.S. has played a role in this development, but at the same time, Israel itself has shown tremendous creativity. The course of development coincides with Netanyahu's. As the son of historian Benzion Netanyahu, he came into contact with political Zionism early on. His successful time in the military in the early 1970s (where even his brother, national hero Jonathan Netanyahu, made a name for himself and gave his life) was formative for what he later devoted the rest of his political life to, Israel and how Israel - despite its geographical location - could assert itself internationally. This aggressive and successful offensive has brought the country to unprecedented heights. But it has also, until recently, occurred in contexts that have been to Israel's advantage, the Western world's more or less unimpeded support, and the relative weakness of the Middle East and the global South. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, supported by Israel, have greatly reduced U.S. influence in the world. And most recently, the war in Ukraine clearly shows the limits of the Western world, and this war risks not only being a significant setback, morally as well as geographically, for Netanyahu personally but also for Israel. He had long had the opportunity to develop into a statesman on par with Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. Now, in the best case, he will be remembered as an aggressive patriot. In the worst case, a war criminal, for no one seems to be aware of the tremendous burden Netanyahu and his government bear. And according to Kissinger, this is part of the tragic view of life, not being able to make one's fellow human beings understand what is really at stake.
But what is at stake then? It is a world where the Western world's influence over and ability to influence what happens in the world is rapidly diminishing. The West's failures in the war in Ukraine are now complemented by another war in the Middle East, where it is difficult to understand what the goal of Israel's offensive could be other than to deter the Palestinians from thinking twice before they stage new uprisings. The big winner seems to be Iran, which for a considerable time postpones Israel's normalisation project with the Arab countries. However, it also has other consequences. Without normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab countries, the U.S. will have difficulty materialising the new trade route intended to compete with China's Silk Road.
"In this new era, the Western world's influence is disappearing, along with its credibility. The devastating interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the confused and ineffective responses to the civil war in Syria, are bad enough," wrote historian Peter Frankopan less than 10 years ago in the book "The Silk Roads: A New History of the World." To these interventions, we can now also add Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict. Once as tragedy. Once as farce.
Amir, thanks so much for publishing, and for translating into English! Your previous article was very moving, and this one is enlightening. Anyone who makes decisions of real consequences in the world will be judged, often by people who have never had a fraction of the responsibility.