December 3, 2023
On GPS, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET:
The passing at 100 of Henry Kissinger, the most consequential US diplomat, has prompted a wave of retrospectives. Having known Kissinger well, Fareed offers his own, identifying an organizing principle that drove Kissinger’s foreign policies: a preference for order.
Kissinger “grew up in Germany as Hitler came to power and watched what was perhaps the most advanced and ‘civilized’ nation in the world descend into barbarism and mass murder,” Fareed says. “He developed a lifelong obsession with order. He was too suspicious of democracy and human rights, but it was because he had seen demagogues like Hitler rise to power through elections. He often remarked, sometimes attributing it to Goethe, that between order and justice he would choose order, because once chaos reigns, there is no possibility for justice. … From start to finish, over a century, Henry Kissinger’s abiding fear was that disruptive forces once set in motion could easily rip off the thin veneer of civilization and stability, pushing the world into the abyss—like the one in which he came of age.”
After that: What lies ahead in the Israel–Hamas war? Who is to blame for Israel’s apparent security failures before and on Oct. 7? Fareed talks with retired Israel Defense Forces Col. Miri Eisin, managing director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.