Diplomacy.

THIS is a magnificent book. It makes one yearn for the days when the United States had a foreign policy in place of the present mixture of wishful thinking, woolly platitudes, and obsession with tomorrow's newspaper headlines.

Despite its title, the book is not actually about diplomacy, an activity practiced by indisputably superior beings but ultimately on a par with Japanese flower-arranging and Scrabble. Or to put it more kindly, diplomacy is essentially tactics, whereas this book is about foreign-policy-making, grand strategy, and statecraft, all of them arts in which Henry Kissinger is an acknowledged black-belt.

Indeed I doubt that anyone has ever seriously accused Henry Kissinger of being diplomatic. I have a memory of attending a meeting with him at the White House in 1971, a meeting from which Dr. Kissinger was promptly called to attend to something important. A kindly secretary served us coffee to pass the time. The Great Man eventually returned and resumed his flow, only to be brought up short by the sight of our coffee. "Who gave you that?" he demanded accusingly. "It's a terrible mistake to give people coffee. You can't get rid of them."

There is a lot of history in this book, but it illuminates the future more than the past, and that is where its brilliance lies. The fascination is in the maxims it derives, the connections and the linkages it establishes, and the consequences for today's world it draws from past events. It is history with a view, in the grand manner of Arnold Toynbee, rather than the meticulous but excruciating detail of Lewis Namier. And it is written with a verve and panache far removed from the more pallid style of most modern historians.

The latter are exacting revenge by magnifying the book's occasional factual lapses: indeed the draft created by the curling of lips in some academic quarters is currently knocking ten minutes off Eastbound transatlantic flights. But the most readable and entertaining histories are those seen through the eyes of great men; and it would be hard to rival this volume's majestic sweep.

There are clear winners and losers, among both statesmen and countries. The report cards are fascinating. Some of those the author admires are predictable enough: Richelieu ("the father of the modern state system"), Metternich, Bismarck ("few statesmen have so altered the course of history"), and Theodore Roosevelt ("no other President defined America's world role so completely in terms of national interest").

Others are more unexpected: William of Orange, Disraeli, and Ronald Reagan ("... was to develop a foreign policy of extraordinary consistency and relevance"). Some equally startling parallels are drawn, for instance between Lord Salisbury and President Bush: "Both men bestrode a world which was receding by the time they came to power, though that fact was not obvious to either of them." Among the dunces is no less a figure than Natpoleon ("unable to establish any order among his multitude of aspirations or any relationship between them and the reality emerging all round him"). This boy must try harder, as my Latin teacher used to say.

The message is clear: there is no way either the meek or the improvisers will inherit the earth. In Dr. Kissinger's Pantheon, the highest grades go to those who--or whose advisors--do careful groundwork, practice rigorous analysis, and are capable of sustained strategic thinking. "A statesman's test is whether he can discern from the swirl of tactical decisions the true long-term interests of his country and devise an appropriate strategy for achieving them."

His judgment of nations is no less searching and makes uncomfortable reading in particular for anyone who nurtures a belief that the old nations of Europe are still significant players on the world stage. Britain and France both fail the test. After Suez, each went its own way: "De Gaulle frequently behaved obstreperously in order to make ignoring him painful; Macmillan made it so easy for the United States to solicit Britain's views that ignoring him would have been embarrassing."

But the results were not dissimilar. France emerges as a long-term loser: "France has lacked the power to impose the universalist aspirations it inherited from the French Revolution or the arena to find an adequate outlet for its missionary zeal ... the prickly style of its diplomacy has been due to attempts by its leaders to perpetuate its role as the center of European policy in an environment increasingly uncongenial to its aspirations."

Britain fares little better. There is sneaking admiration for that nation's "convenient form of ethical egotism: what was good for Britain was considered good for the rest of the world." And quite right, too, in a surprisingly large number of cases!

The true but scarcely heroic nature of the special relationship is accurately diagnosed: "a common language and cultural heritage combined with great tactfulness to enable British leaders to inject their ideas into the American decisionmaking process in such a manner that they imperceptibly seemed to be part of Washington's own." But the consequences of the increasing disparity of power are mercilessly exposed: "Great Britain opted for permanent subordination to American policy." Not much room for sentiment here; and although admiration is expressed for Margaret Thatcher's personal qualities--and his review of her own book in the New York Times Book Review attributed to her an extraordinary degree of influence over American policy--she is allocated only a very modest walk-on part in world events. It didn't seem like that at the time.

In the end Britain and France are dismissed in the same breath: "none of Europe's erstwhile practitioners of raison d'etat are now strong enough to act as principals in the emerging international order." Only Germany is seen as still a force, but more a problem than part of a solution. Germany's awkwardness lies in the "unassimilable greatness" Bismarck achieved for it. "Germany has become so strong that existing European institutions cannot by themselves strike a balance between Germany and its European partners."

While admiring the brutality of the reasoning, I question the conclusions on two grounds. First, they underestimate the continued instinct for a world role--albeit a lesser one--in Britain and France. Nationhood is stirring strongly beneath the smokescreen of federalism which is now blowing off Europe's battlefields. It's too soon to write obituaries for the old nation-states of Europe.

Secondly, there is a blind spot for the European Community (or European Union, as we have now to call it). Indeed, revealingly, it does not even get into the index. Irritation with the EC has deep roots in Henry Kissinger's thinking, dating back at least to Europe's ungracious response to his unilaterally proclaimed Year of Europe in 1973. But if the European Union succeeds in embracing the countries of Eastern Europe, it will surely constitute a major masse de manoeuvre which will make its mark in the next century.

The central theme of the book, however, is the evolution of United States foreign policy. This is presented in terms of an unending struggle between morality and national interest, with the balance swinging between the two according to the predilections of successive Presidents. Sometimes both tendencies are present simultaneously, most notably when John Foster Dulles abandoned "colonial" Britain and France over Suez while failing to support the Hungarian popular uprising against Soviet colonialism: only one of the occasions when American moralizing has caused the United States' Allies to grind their teeth in rage and frustration. More recent examples lie particularly in the field of trade policy, where the United States' ability to feel itself put upon by the rest of the world is limitless, leading to unilateral protectionist measures like the infamous Super 301. But such mundane matters as trade and economic diplomacy were never high on Henry Kissinger's agenda, and they do not feature significantly in this book, depriving it of an important if less than glittering dimension.

Nonetheless Henry Kissinger's recipe for the future is healthily hardnosed. In the post-Cold War era "the United States can neither withdraw from the world nor dominate it." It will face a "collapsing world order [which has] spawned a number of states pursuing their national interests, unrestrained by any overriding principles." In this new world, America's primary objective should be to avoid "the domination by a single power of either of Eurasia's two principal spheres, Europe or Asia." It should seek "partially overlapping alliance systems, some focusing on security, others on economic relations." "Integrating Russia into the international system" will be a key task. But we should do it with our eyes open. "Once Russia recovers economically its pressure on neighboring countries is certain to mount ... Russian reform will be impeded not helped by turning a blind eye to the reappearance of historic Russian imperial pretensions." This means that NATO, which has been marking time since the end of the Cold War, must be reinvigorated, both as an obstacle to Russian expansion and as the principal institutional link between America and Europe. It should not shrink from admitting the nations of Eastern Europe to full membership, over Russian objections if necessary. Self-righteous posturing must be eschewed. In dealing with China, for instance, "the problem is not America's advocacy of its values but the degree to which all aspects of Sino-American relations are made dependent on them." The tactic of withholding American trade is seen as far less likely to influence China than trading with it would.

Wisely, Dr. Kissinger allocates the United Nations no significant role. As President Nixon points out in his last testament: "Can anyone seriously suggest that a collective body such as the UN, nearly one-third of whose members have populations smaller than that of the State of Arkansas, could be 'assertive'?" Rather, it is the United States which must lead; but its interests must shape its commitments rather than the other way round. There is also a healthy reminder of the self-imposed limitations on the exercise of American power: "America must be careful not to multiply moral commitments while the financial and military resources for the conduct of a global policy are being curtailed." One recalls the delicious if possibly apocryphal story of Henry Kissinger telephoning Lawrence Eagleburger in the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, when it seemed to be failing, and asking: "Larry, what happens when the United States cannot win against a country of 100,000?"

"Well, Henry, I suppose we try one of 20,000."

The conclusion is that America will have to learn to operate in a balanceof-power system, not a million miles removed from that of nineteenth-century Europe. As Yogi Berra said, it's deja vu all over again. The traditional Wilsonian rhetoric is tolerable as a means of persuading the great American public to swallow the castor oil of a foreign policy based squarely on America's national interest, but not as a guide to decision-making. One hopes that the message will be heard, because the need for American leadership is as great now as it ever was. Those who believe unreservedly in basing foreign policy on national interest and self-confidence in Western values are currently eclipsed, and not only in the United States. This wholly admirable book should become the rallying point for their resurgence.