By Imran Khalid
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The recent limpid alteration in his stance on important global topics ― the Ukraine war, Russia, Putin and China ― which are interwoven together in one string by compelling circumstances, is a lucid example of this realpolitik ― a sophisticated amalgam of pragmatism and ideology in the domain of international affairs.
In June, when Putin was going full throttle to consolidate Russian positions in the southern and eastern parts of Ukraine, Kissinger propagated a three-pronged narrative. One: the war will be stopped sooner or later, although if the negotiations were not resumed immediately ― he meant June-July ― then it would become extremely intricate for all the stakeholders to manage and contain its side effects later on.
Two: Russia has been an integral part of European politics for the last 400 years and its role could not be ignored, undervalued or degraded. Russia should not be subjected to embarrassing defeat in the Donbas, which would push Putin into panic mode and he might retaliate severely by resorting to even the usage of battlefield-size nuclear weapons to avenge his humiliation ― thus, having all the potential to metastasize the war to other parts of Europe.
And three, he advocated for "status quo ante," which referred to the restoration of the situation in which Russia could maintain its formal control of Crimea and informal control of Luhansk and Donetsk, where Russia had already established a loose statehood structure since 2014 through proxies.
Three months down the road, after witnessing some of the embarrassing routs of the occupied territories of Ukraine that compelled Putin to announce partial mobilization of reserves to bolster the weakening Russian posts, Henry Kissinger has made a palpable shift in his stance toward the Ukraine war.
Speaking in a council on foreign relations, "Lessons from History Series: Conversation with Henry Kissinger," on Sept. 30, he admitted that Russia has "already lost the war," but stressed that the West must keep contact with Russia in some way. Some dialogue, maybe on an unofficial level, maybe in an exploratory way, is very important, further emphasizing that "in the nuclear environment" such an outcome is preferable to a "battlefield decision."
Kissinger is a very pragmatic practitioner of diplomacy. He understands the sensitivities of the Russians with regard to retreating from Ukraine. But his views again do not go well with the hawkish elements in Washington and Western capitals who are not ready to listen to anything that resembles treating Moscow as "equal" after the Ukraine debacle.
There is another shift in Kissinger's stance and that is related to the definition of the status quo. In May and June, he was advocating that Ukraine should initiate negotiations with Russia even at the cost of ceding the territories captured by Russians and that should be treated as the status quo. However, now he has revised his definition of the status quo ― as of pre-Feb. 24's international borders between Russia and Ukraine ― as a prerequisite to initiating any direct or indirect dialogue between the two.
Similarly, further corroborating his renewed thinking, Kissinger is now advising Chinese President Xi Jinping to "recalibrate" his support for Russia on Ukraine so as to prevent a "wall of opposition" from developing against it in the West as has happened with Russia.
Kissinger is of the view that Putin has lost the war in Ukraine, and the outside world should now tackle him quite diligently to muffle the possibility of any desperate step ― including the use of nuclear weapons.
The recent spree of missiles on different cities of Ukraine, including Kyiv, in retaliation for the destruction of the Kerch Bridge linking Crimea to Russia, has further validated the vindictive nature of Putin. Kissinger truly represents realpolitik, where enemies and friends are never permanent.
Kissinger is very much clear that Russia is gradually losing the war, but he is still preaching for a relatively face-saving formula for Putin when things move to the negotiating table. Kissinger does not want Putin to be subjected to any "humiliating" treatment at the end of this episode. Perhaps this is the point on which the hawks are upset with Kissinger's doctrine on the Ukraine war and its implications.
Dr. Imran Khalid (immhza6@gmail.com) is a freelance contributor based in Karachi, Pakistan.
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