Posted on 03/07/2025 7:13:49 AM PST by MtnClimber
The former secretary of state’s 1972 opening to China badly weakened the U.S. By dispensing with that conceit, Trump shows he intends for America to win the great-power competition.
The undiplomatic words that Donald Trump had for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week left some Washington, D.C., observers wondering how the Europeans saw the situation. After all, they wondered, if that’s how Trump treats a war-torn country fighting for its independence against Russian despot Vladimir Putin, what do Paris, London, and Rome, etc. think about U.S. security commitments?
Other foreign policy analysts recognize that Trump has many audiences outside the United States, including those in Moscow and Beijing. Many of these Trump watchers conjectured that the spectacle at the White House was meant to illustrate that Trump was willing to tilt against Ukraine in order to accommodate Putin. And the reason for that, they say, is to drive a wedge between Russia and China, what Trump sees as America’s No. 1 threat.
The Washington foreign policy establishment is calling what it presumes to be Trump’s Russia policy “reverse Kissinger.” That is, Trump is using the same tactic employed by Richard Nixon’s chief foreign policy aide Henry Kissinger when he encouraged his boss to open relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and thereby “play the China card” against the more powerful Soviet Union. And in February 1972, Nixon went to Beijing, forging the opening with China. Trump, some are arguing, is doing the same, except going the other way.
Indeed, Kissinger himself had prophesied the coming of the “reverse Kissinger,” for as he told Nixon only days before their fateful 1972 trip, a future American president “if he’s as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese.”
Kissinger reportedly suggested the idea to Trump in 2017 and the president told me for my forthcoming book on China that lots of people agreed it was a bad idea to let Russia and China get close. There were many in the administration who wanted to see if there was a way to work with Moscow to hobble Beijing, but there was no way to get around Russiagate.
The surveillance and propaganda operation managed by Barack Obama’s spy chiefs who alleged that the Trump circle had illicit ties to Russia consumed most of Trump’s first term, and made it impossible for him to engage with Putin on most meaningful issues. Thus, Russiagate was more than a Beltway scandal featuring U.S. spy services that tried to topple the government; it’s a still-unfolding national security disaster of the first order that limited the president’s ability to secure American peace and advance our prosperity.
Insofar as it kept Trump from testing the waters to see if he might split Russia from China, Russiagate was effectively a pro-CCP information operation benefiting a U.S. ruling class—including media, Big Tech, and corporate elites alongside the security services—whose wealth, power, and prestige are fruits of the opening with China. Many of those now disdainful of Trump’s initiative are deeply invested in his failure since weakening China weakens them. Naturally they’re going to say that Trump can’t pull it off—because, for among other reasons, Trump isn’t as smart as America’s most famous statesman. However, a more critical look at the opening shows that Kissinger and his boss bungled it badly.
Trump’s critics are right that there’s nothing now analogous to the fault line underlying the 1972 opening—there’s no obvious breathing space between Moscow and Beijing like the Sino-Soviet split that drove the two communist juggernauts apart starting with the 1953 death of Josef Stalin. But Kissinger fans give him far too much credit for seizing that opportunity, when the plain fact is that he misplayed the gift that fell into his lap.
Early in Nixon’s term, Soviet diplomats asked their American counterparts how Washington would react to a Soviet nuclear attack on China—in fact, would the U.S. care to join them? The White House was horrified and leaked Moscow’s plans to deter the attack. Mao later told Kissinger he thought it was strange the Americans saw no advantage in letting their two communist rivals tear each other to pieces. Clearly that’s how Mao would have played it, because that’s how the PRC saw the opening: They were playing the American card against the Russians.
When the Chinese came running to the Americans for help, Washington by definition held the stronger position. But it was the White House that played the supplicant. For instance, during his secret July 1971 trip to Beijing to prepare for Nixon’s visit, Kissinger gifted Beijing with precious intelligence on Soviet troop movements in exchange for … agreeing to host the leader of the free world in the run-down capital of a dirt-poor third-world hellhole peopled by, at the time, nearly 900 million peasants. It would only get worse for the U.S. side, despite the great photo ops Nixon earned with his historic trip....SNIP
The Russia hoax was really a treasonous operation.
Kissenger was OSS and then CIA his entire life.
As a young Army Intelligence Officer who was Jewish and spoke German, he was the personal translator for Dulles in getting the German scientists to come to America after WWII.
I have heard Kissinger was one of the guys who thought that if the western nations ever wanted to attack Russia, use Eastern Europeans to do it.
Seems like his idea was listened to.
A Sino-Russian combination formed to threaten the U.S. militarily has apparently been the fear.
But if Trump explores friendlier relations with Russia, will he truly be acting out of fear?
There’s the possibility that Trump will be accused of naïveté. Also, the risk that he is, in fact, falling prey to naïveté. But This Guy thinks Trump is trying to tame the bear. Permanently.
Taming the dragon might be a bigger challenge, best left for a future MAGA king to initiate.
Did not know that! Thanks t&r
Bottom line: The US is not going to be able to occupy and conquer either Russia or China and so will have to use diplomacy and balance of power politics to maintain international equilibrium for the foreseeable future.
I believe there has always been a large contingent of Americans sympathetic to Communism and to Communist Russia. I expect they greatly outnumbered the Bund before WWII.
There is probably no Western leader with more blood on his hands and a seemingly desire to bring a one world government than this one man.
It’s Communists that lead the charge against Russia, because they’ve never forgiven Russia for abandoning Communism.
I think that’s true. Today, they’re not really against it. It’s just too far from Maoist China.
Kissenger, the Adventures of Super-Kraut.
Charles Ashman, 1972
(have it in my library)
Wonder what his primary language was?
Finally, some astute geopolitical reasoning.
You might enjoy this bit of history
Kissenger was born in Germany (1923), and emigrated to the United States in 1938 as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution.
He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University, where he excelled academically. He later became a professor of government at the university and earned an international reputation as an expert on nuclear weapons and foreign policy.
He acted as a consultant to government agencies, think tanks, and the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller and Nixon before being appointed as national security advisor and later secretary of state by President Nixon.
U.S. Army per Wiki:
Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On June 19, 1943, while stationed in South Carolina, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania under the Army Specialized Training Program, but the program was canceled and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer, a fellow immigrant from Germany who noted Kissinger’s fluency in German and his intellect and arranged for him to be assigned to the division’s military intelligence.
According to Vernon A. Walters, Kissinger also received training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, before being shipped to Europe. Kissinger saw combat with the division and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge.
On April 10, 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Hannover-Ahlem concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. At the time, Kissinger wrote in his journal, “I had never seen people degraded to the level that people were in Ahlem. They barely looked human. They were skeletons.” After the initial shock, however, Kissinger was relatively silent about his wartime service.
During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger, though only a private, was put in charge of the administration of the city of Krefeld because of a lack of German speakers on the division’s intelligence staff. Within eight days he had established a civilian administration.
Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), where he became a CIC Special Agent holding the enlisted rank of sergeant. He was given charge of a team in Hanover assigned to tracking down Gestapo officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. Kissinger drew up a comprehensive list of all known Gestapo employees in the Bergstraße region, and had them rounded up.
By the end of July, 12 men had been arrested. In March 1947, Fritz Girke, Hans Hellenbroich, Michael Raaf, and Karl Stattmann were subsequently caught and tried by the Dachau Military Tribunal for killing two American prisoners of war. The four men were all found guilty and sentenced to death. They were executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison in October 1948.
In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of the Bensheim metro CIC detachment, Bergstraße district of Hesse, with responsibility for denazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King and, as a civilian employee following his separation from the army, continued to serve in this role.
You might enjoy this bit of history
Kissenger was born in Germany (1923), and emigrated to the United States in 1938 as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution.
He served in the U.S. Army during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard University, where he excelled academically. He later became a professor of government at the university and earned an international reputation as an expert on nuclear weapons and foreign policy.
He acted as a consultant to government agencies, think tanks, and the presidential campaigns of Nelson Rockefeller and Nixon before being appointed as national security advisor and later secretary of state by President Nixon.
U.S. Army per Wiki:
Kissinger underwent basic training at Camp Croft in Spartanburg, South Carolina. On June 19, 1943, while stationed in South Carolina, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
The army sent him to study engineering at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania under the Army Specialized Training Program, but the program was canceled and Kissinger was reassigned to the 84th Infantry Division. There, he made the acquaintance of Fritz Kraemer, a fellow immigrant from Germany who noted Kissinger’s fluency in German and his intellect and arranged for him to be assigned to the division’s military intelligence.
According to Vernon A. Walters, Kissinger also received training at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, before being shipped to Europe. Kissinger saw combat with the division and volunteered for hazardous intelligence duties during the Battle of the Bulge.
On April 10, 1945, he participated in the liberation of the Hannover-Ahlem concentration camp, a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. At the time, Kissinger wrote in his journal, “I had never seen people degraded to the level that people were in Ahlem. They barely looked human. They were skeletons.” After the initial shock, however, Kissinger was relatively silent about his wartime service.
During the American advance into Germany, Kissinger, though only a private, was put in charge of the administration of the city of Krefeld because of a lack of German speakers on the division’s intelligence staff. Within eight days he had established a civilian administration.
Kissinger was then reassigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC), where he became a CIC Special Agent holding the enlisted rank of sergeant. He was given charge of a team in Hanover assigned to tracking down Gestapo officers and other saboteurs, for which he was awarded the Bronze Star. Kissinger drew up a comprehensive list of all known Gestapo employees in the Bergstraße region, and had them rounded up.
By the end of July, 12 men had been arrested. In March 1947, Fritz Girke, Hans Hellenbroich, Michael Raaf, and Karl Stattmann were subsequently caught and tried by the Dachau Military Tribunal for killing two American prisoners of war. The four men were all found guilty and sentenced to death. They were executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison in October 1948.
In June 1945, Kissinger was made commandant of the Bensheim metro CIC detachment, Bergstraße district of Hesse, with responsibility for denazification of the district. Although he possessed absolute authority and powers of arrest, Kissinger took care to avoid abuses against the local population by his command.
In 1946, Kissinger was reassigned to teach at the European Command Intelligence School at Camp King and, as a civilian employee following his separation from the army, continued to serve in this role.
Sorry for duplicate post. Posted from my phone in a remote area with bad reception.
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