The Foreign Policy Villain: Henry Kissinger
As both former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger played one of the most influential positions in US foreign policy during the Cold War. He is frequently credited with helping to maintain relations between the United States and the Soviet Union through conciliation, a process in which a third-party arbitrator arbitrates disputes. To this day, the footprint left by Henry Kissinger remains a subject of intense discussion and diverse perspectives.
Born in 1923 into a Jewish family in Germany, Kissinger fled Nazi persecution and arrived in the United States in 1938. His personal escape from oppression was frequently used to frame his career as an “American success story.” During World War II, he served in the US Army as a German interpreter and intelligence officer, later becoming a US citizen in 1943. In pursuit of education, he went on to study political science at Harvard University, where he developed views that would define his realpolitikapproach to power. This formed the foundation of the ideological compass he built, comprising three pillars: states act in their own interests, morality is secondary, and stability justifies brutality.
At the start of his booming career, Kissinger rose to prominence as a foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential candidate Nelson Rockefeller, before aligning himself with Richard Nixon. Kissinger was driven by the pursuit of influence and control over foreign policy. When Rockefeller failed to secure the nomination, Nixon offered to turn his realpolitik theory into practice. Following Nixon’s election, Kissinger was appointed as National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, holding unprecedented power from 1969 to 1975 under Presidents Nixon and Ford. During this period, Kissinger effectively shaped US foreign policy without democratic accountability, operating through secrecy and deliberate exclusion of the public.
Unravelling Kissinger’s Legacy
Kissinger’s approach to international conflict was marked by a stark pragmatism that often overshadowed ethical considerations. While some may view his diplomatic tactics as effective, they are indicative of a deeper moral failing. His legacy remains controversial, largely due to his tenure as former Secretary of State, which entrenched him as a key figure within the Republican Party.
Kissinger’s hard-headed demeanor is evident not only in his policies but also in his books, Diplomacy and New World Order. One example is the support for Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when Pakistani forces conducted a brutal military crackdown in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Despite warnings from US diplomats in the region that a genocide was occurring, Kissinger continued to support Pakistan’s military regime, which was useful in establishing a diplomatic link to China. Kissinger and Nixon downplayed the atrocities, with recordings revealing Kissinger making callous, dismissive remarks about the victims.
His severe and realist foreign policy approach suggests a belief that true peace can emerge only from the ruthless realities of international relations. Daniel Ellsberg, the journalist who revealed the truth behind the Pentagon Papers, a Department of Defence history of the United States’ political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968, served as a foil to Kissinger’s legacy, exposing the grim realities of American military actions in Vietnam. Known as “the patriot truth-teller,” Daniel was an anti-war activist and frequent watcher of the US State Department. While working as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, Ellsberg, a former Marine and Pentagon insider, photocopied 7,000 pages of confidential documents that revealed four successive presidential administrations (Truman to Johnson) had systematically lied to the public and Congress about the scope and progress of the Vietnam War.
His work catalysed a fierce legal battle over press freedom. To stop further leaks, the Nixon White House formed a special investigations unit known as the “Plumbers.” They illegally burglarised the office of Ellsberg’s psychiatrist to find material to discredit him. These actions were revealed during Ellsberg’s trial, leading to the dismissal of all charges against him and becoming a key part of the Watergate scandal that forced President Nixon to resign, leaving Kissinger with an undeniable hostility toward Ellsberg—his relentless efforts to belittle Ellsberg by dismissing him as an obsessive nobody.
Vietnam and Cambodia remain chilling testaments to the depths of moral depravity that Henry Kissinger has inflicted. In an attempt to pressure North Vietnam, Kissinger orchestrated a covert bombing campaign in Cambodia, a nation that was supposed to remain neutral. Over half a million tons of bombs were unleashed, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Not only did Kissinger deceive Congress and the American public by concealing this, but also maintained a shamefully silent regarding the catastrophe.
Meanwhile, in Chile, Kissinger supported the violent overthrow of democratically elected socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973. By backing General Augusto Pinochet’s bloody military coup, he paved the way for a dictatorship infamous for its torture, disappearances, and executions. With chilling indifference, Kissinger dismissed legitimate concerns regarding human rights from the world and the United Nations, propagating the notion that the US must not “stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.”
The United States must not stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.
This is just a glimpse of the humanitarian crimes committed under his watch. Why should we laud Kissinger for his so-called capabilities when they have been wielded exclusively to serve selfish ends? We must remember the countless civilians—families, mothers, children—who were ruthlessly swept away in his uncompromising pursuit of power in Cambodia, Vietnam, Chile, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. It is time to confront the reality of his monstrous legacy.
To call Henry Kissinger a legend is, in many ways, a moral evasion. His worldview was clear, and his priorities were more than backwards: order mattered more than justice, power mattered more than people, and stability mattered more than lives. History must resist the temptation to label plain-sighted cruelty as brilliance. Kissinger’s legacy has certainly not followed the path of peace, but rather destruction cloaked as strategic diplomacy. If that is what genius looks like, then history should learn to reject it.
