“Miscalculated” – Ex-US Secretary of State Kissinger Settles Scores with Putin

Called “Oracle”, “Urgestein” or “Living Legend” for short: Henry Kissinger is 99 years old since Friday and is extremely agile. Politics keeps him fit. The former US Secretary of State (“Nixon in China”) and world strategist is about to publish his new book “Statecraft”. In this late work he gives us “Six Lessons for the 21st Century”, so the subtitle. At a recent Financial Times event in Washington, Kissinger was asked about his assessment of current events. The foreign minister, who has met with the Kremlin chief almost every year, agrees that Putin has made a gross miscalculation.

Why? “I think his core belief is rooted in some sort of mystical belief in Russian history as he understands it, and measured by that feeling he feels hurt, not necessarily because of everything we’ve done, but because of this huge gap that is widening. between opens to the west and the east.”

According to Kissinger, Putin felt threatened by NATO’s eastward expansion: “But that does not excuse the attack of this magnitude on an internationally recognized country, which I did not expect. Putin misjudged the opportunities he has internationally He has clearly misjudged the possibilities that Russia has.”

When and how will Putin end the war? Kissinger: “The obvious question is how long this escalation will last and how many resources he has at his disposal or if he has already reached the limit of his possibilities. He must decide when that point has been reached that in the near future the his country’s role as a great power in international politics can no longer be sustained.”

Kissinger warns against ‘destructive weapons’
Kissinger does not believe Putin will use nuclear weapons, but: “The rapid acceleration and sophistication of technology have made possible weapons whose destructive power was previously unimaginable. And the strange view of our time is that these weapons are multiplying on both sides and expand their capabilities every year, but until now there has been no international debate about what would happen if these weapons were used.”

Kissinger concludes: “My appeal in general, whichever side you are on, understand that we live in a very new era and that we have hardly paid any attention to it. But as the techniques spread globally, which is inevitable, diplomacy and warfare will need to be recalibrated — and that will be a challenge.”

So says the diplomat of the century. He has found a sympathetic successor in Washington: Fiona Hill, presidential adviser, many years top official on the American National Security Council and a world-renowned Russia specialist.

Putin is not a bluff
“Putin is not one to bluff,” Hill summarizes her experiences in Russia in the magazine “Internationale Politik”. “His behavior so far indicates that he is ready to take drastic measures if he sees it necessary.” Litvinenko in London two years earlier, the murder of Novichok in Salisbury in 2018: the list of Putin’s offenses is long and shows that he will stop at nothing.”

Hill goes far into the past: “It goes back to the Second Chechen War in 1999/2000. It is so often forgotten that Putin took office as president in times of war. At the time, apartment buildings in Russian cities had been blown up, allegedly by Chechen terrorists, but there is evidence that the FSB (successor to the KGB) was behind it (to justify a war against Chechnya). Russian forces then ravaged the Chechen capital of Grozny, killing dozens of civilians, most of whom were Slavs and Russian speakers – including women and children – as Grozny was actually a Russian city. So we’ve seen what Putin is capable of from the start of his term in office,” the top US diplomat summarized in Internationale Politik magazine.

NATO offer to Ukraine was a strategic mistake
Was NATO’s eastward expansion the trigger for the war or a pretext? Hill: “Not a pretext, but not the only answer to war either. To be clear, I regard Ukraine’s offer to join NATO in 2008 as a strategic mistake by President Bush against all advisers. It should never have been on the table, because it was not feasible anyway – and as we can see, the worst of all solutions. For Putin, NATO is an aggressive alliance, at least when they bombed Belgrade.”

Hill continued: “Over the years, Putin’s backward view of Russia’s position in Europe has obscured. He has upgraded. From Putin’s point of view, it’s about bringing together the countries that were once part of the Russian Empire. It is now clear that Putin sees himself as the embodiment of the Russian state. It is this obsession that has brought us to where we are today. So it’s not just about NATO, it’s about Putin’s understanding of Russia’s place in Europe. He has often said that he wants recognition of the fact that Russia is “an extraordinary state.” That’s why he often went against the American sentiment of exceptionalism by saying, ‘We are exceptional too.’”

How will this all end? The Russia expert says: “Putin may know he miscalculated. He believes he can still get through his long-term plan. This is probably why the initial blitzkrieg quickly turned into a much more vicious and barbaric attack. ” Conclusion of the US Presidential Adviser: “The Russian leadership has created a dire situation and Russia will be seen internationally as a rogue state for the foreseeable future.”