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

“The Westphalian system spread around the world as the framework for a state-based international order spanning multiple civilizations and regions because, as the European nations expanded, they carried the blueprint of their international order with them.”

Kissinger considers the Westphalian system to be innovative at its inception and relevant today. The Westphalian peace ended the devastating 17th-century Thirty Years’ War in Europe. This war forced European rulers to arrive at a balance of power that, in Kissinger’s words, was procedural, rather than dependent on particular dynasties and temporal scenarios.

“Any system of world order, to be sustainable, must be accepted as just—not only by leaders, but also by citizens. It must reflect two truths: order without freedom, even if sustained by momentary exaltation, eventually creates its own counterpoise; yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace. Order and freedom, sometimes described as opposite poles on the spectrum of experience, should instead be understood as interdependent.”

Here Kissinger emphasizes the importance of domestic and international politics as they pertain to the question of world order. Implicitly, this is an argument for democratic politics in which the ordinary people have a say in their government’s foreign policy and, indeed, endorse it. Should the opposite be the case, neither domestic nor international politics are sustainable in the long term, according to the author. 

“In a period of general upheaval, a country that maintains domestic authority is in a position to exploit chaos in neighboring states for larger international objectives.”

As a statesman and an academic, the author is known as a practitioner of a realist foreign policy. At times, this realism borders on Machiavellianism. Here Kissinger suggests using other countries’ domestic weaknesses to pursue one’s own national and international interests.