Henry Alfred Kissinger died on Wednesday, November 29, at the age of 100, leaving behind a diplomatic legacy that is America’s answer to Klemens von Metternich, the conservative statesman who restored a balance of power to Europe in the aftermath of the upheavals caused by Napoleon.
Kissinger was a conservative internationalist, one who favored engagement over neutrality, but who prioritized American interests in doing so, and sought to create stability that would ultimately work to America’s advantage.
Kissinger’s great achievement was to split communist China from the Soviet Union. He engineered a thaw in relations that saw President Richard M. Nixon, who had built his political career as a tough anti-communist, visit China in 1972.
