"Without Europe, America will become an island off the shores of Eurasia, condemned to a kind of pure balance-of-power politics that does not reflect its national genius." -Henry Kissinger
This quote from one of America’s most effective secretaries of state ties America’s fate to that of Europe’s. On its face, it appears Kissinger is saying that in order to have a foreign policy with ambitions beyond balance-of-power politics, the United States needs a like-minded Europe.
In the same 1994 Washington Post Op-ed in which he describes the tragedy faced by an America without Europe, Kissinger writes that “Without America, Europe turns into a peninsula at the tip of Eurasia, unable to find equilibrium much less unity and at risk of gradually subsiding.” So the two are interdependent, and in this interdependency the United States can pursue a foreign policy that does reflect its “national genius.”
For those who believe values other than power are out of reach in international politics, Henry Kissinger’s statement might appear flawed on a fundamental level. Like all other countries, they may argue, the United States operates not only with an eye towards balancing its opponents, but maximizing its own capabilities. Europe was never a partner in doing anything more than that, and it never will.
If we entertain the possibility that there are values and corresponding goals outside of power in global politics, then we might consider what Kissinger meant by the United States being “condemned” to pursue balance-of-power politics, a foreign policy “that does not reflect its national genius.”
What is America’s national genius, and what kind of foreign policy does it produce?
America’s genius is its limited, republican form of government: guaranteed individual rights and clearly delineated powers reserved to either the states, the people, or the federal government. But the foreign policy chosen by America is not determined merely by its form of government. We could argue which strategies throughout American history best illustrate balance-of-power politics, liberalism, imperialism, and so on. One matter is for sure, however: America’s goals and the strategies used to reach those goals have varied. Does Kissinger mean that the United States needs to have Europe in order to achieve more beyond balancing power, such as say, spreading democracy and free markets?
While Kissinger may believe the United States is good for more than balance-of-power politics, he doesn’t indicate that in his op-ed. He leaves out sweeping claims about America spreading democracy and free markets to countries beyond Central Europe. Rather, the entire point of his essay is to urge the Clinton administration to narrowly expand NATO to Central Europe and thereby balance security in Europe as a whole.
One interpretation of Kissinger’s statement, then, is this: the United States does not need to perpetually prevent the rise of a hegemon in Eurasia as it did twice in the 20th century. Rather, it can rely on Europe and Europe can rely on it to keep peace among the Eurasian great powers. It seems that Kissinger means peace, rather than democracy or even prosperity, should be the limited goal pursued by a country with a uniquely limited government. Kissinger writes that without Europe, America would be “condemned to a kind of pure balance-of-power politics.” Which kind? Kissinger describes it: “America concluded twice in this century that the domination of Eurasia by a hegemonic power threatens its vital interests, and has gone to war to prevent it.”
To prevent it without war would be the superior strategy.