Clearing the Backlog - September 17, 2021

• Machinations of Wicked Men 
• Author: Jonathan Kirshner
• Source: The Boston Review
• Summary: a very entertaining, acerbic, and well-written review of Kissinger the Idealist - a biography by Niall Ferguson.  Much of the focus is on whether or not Kissinger could be considered an Idealist (as claimed by Ferguson) or a Realist; Kirshner firmly favors the latter.
• Quotes:
• Roger Ebert once defined a blockbuster movie sequel as a “filmed deal.” The literary equivalent is the official biography. A towering ego, obsessed with the judgment of history, hand selects a scribe-for-hire, offering the promise of heady remuneration and consort with fame in exchange for a fawning hagiography. It would be refreshing to be able to report that Niall Ferguson’s Kissinger, 1923–1968: The Idealist, is more than that. Unfortunately, clocking in at nearly a thousand densely packed pages, it is simply more of that.
• Perhaps learning at the feet of his protagonist (whose own memoirs sprawl across thousands of pages of score-settling bias), Ferguson has embraced a strategy of literary overkill, a saturation-bombing of verbiage aspiring to pummel stubborn facts into submission. But while his central claim—Kissinger the idealist—is indeed novel and revisionist, it is also wrong. Simply, plainly, fundamentally, and exactly wrong. Confidently and repeatedly asserting the same erroneous claim does not make it accurate.
• Moreover, for reasons that might have to do more with realists than realism, it must be said that the paradigm—again, in stark contrast with idealism—is properly associated with a brooding, deeply pessimistic streak based on assumptions about humanity’s enduring potential for barbarism, the looming danger of war, and other hazards smoldering just below a thin crust of civilization.
• Impressions: This is an excellent article that gives important background on Kissinger, as well as a good introduction to various schools of thought within International Relations.  Kirshner rightly eviscerates Ferguson's main argument, but is even-handed as regards to Kissinger himself, and in fact holds some of Kissinger's writing in very high regard, using one book as a text in his own courses.  This review is probably more useful for someone interested in Kissinger's own writing than in Ferguson's biography.
• It would be interesting to consider the Realist school's views on the Vietnam war being unwinnable - "in spite of its impressive military might, the United States could not reach its political objective: a viable South Vietnamese government that could survive after U.S. forces finally left the county" - and apply a similar analysis to the US's more recent forays into Iraq and Afghanistan.  Is there still much of a Realist school within modern International Relations, either in theory or in practice?  
• The review contains a number of jumping-off points for further reading, with quite a few specific texts mentioned.