Vietnam through which he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 and parenthetically the gratitude of this young lieutenant in the United States army. Thank you mistress. Other honors include the president ial medal of freedom, the middle of liberty and the National Book award for history for the first volume of his memoirs in the white house years. His new book world order is a comprehensive analysis of the challenges of Building International order in the world of differing perspectives, violent conflict, Urgent Technology and ideological extremism. You learn about the westphalian peace and be led on a fascinating exploration of european balance of power from charlemagne to the present time. Islam in the middle east, the u. S. And iran, the multiplicity of asia and the continuing development of u. S. Policy. They are often more important than the answers and secretary kissinger has some brilliant one such as what do we seek to prevent no matter how it happens and even if we have to do it alone what do we seek to achieve even if not supported by anyone what should we not engage in anything if urged by a Multilateral Group and i think most importantly what does the nature of the values that we seek to advance. You will be intrigued and challenged by this book. I cant finish without mentioning probably one of secretary kissingers least known but as a transplanted native new yorker i think the most wonderful honor. He was made at the first honorary the first honorary member of the harlem globetrotters. [laughter] doctor kissinger will be interviewed at this evening by Jeff Greenfield in the acclaimed acclaimed acclaimed apollo debate Television Commentator in his own right to lecture here last year about his book if kennedy lived. Its an honor and a privilege to have them with us and im sorry i wasnt able to arrange the playing of sweet georgia brown. Please join me in welcoming Henry Kissinger and Jeff Greenfield. [applause] when Henry Kissinger was named secretary of state, the press asked him what should we call you, professor kissinger, doctor kissinger, secretary kissinger he replied your excellency will do. This isnt my plan for tonight. This covers 400 years of diplomatic military history and four or five continents. We have a little less than an hour. When we finish dealing with the book we will talk about the tax policy. But what i want to do is take doctor kissinger what you have written and see its application today. Dont interfere. Look at isis which crosses the National Boundaries and if you look at the United States on them in serious. Its less than a country as a group of tribes whose central out of power is resentment and vengeance. Can you look at the world today and actually Say Something like a world order is possible or is that an old concept that is simply not applicable today . First of all i agree with you that it is no world order today. And perhaps if i tell you what induced me to write the book i was having dinner with a friend, professor at yale and i was discussing various ideas i had for writing a book most of which had to do with the personalities and he said youve written a lot of literacy. Why dont you write about something that concerns you most what concerns me most at the moment is the absence. The different regions of the world interacting with each other. The roman empire and the chinese empire existed without any significant knowledge and acted without any difference. So the reality of the present period is different societies with different histories are now integrate concept of the world order so i began for two reasons because that was the only system of world order that has ever been devised and because of the dominance in europe and because the europeans were part of the problem around the world as a concept and in every part of the world whatever order existed as part of an entire. In the islamic world that doesnt exist. Europe is the only society where the sovereignty of states and the balance of their actions with each other was believed to produce International Order so thats why it started with that and then attempted to apply to many circumstances. But this wasnt a book you could read to see what the order will be. Its to tell you this is what we are up against now. This is the challenge we have but it does not say that i know what the end result of all these conflicts and ambiguities some of which you describe will be. Im getting the westphalian peace which is 1648 after a 30 year war. Either way you like to be the district repeats itself. Remember the fight over the paris peace accord table. 1648, the sensibility of the various diplomats headed up the number of doors so that everybody could enter by the same importance and i believe you describe they had to walk the same moment. Somethings dont change but i think the more relevant part is is it folly to look at a 360yearold set of conferences involving one small part of the globe and it somehow has applicability to what we need in the 21st century where you have an islamist power to believe that is destined to rule the world and you may not have a chinese empire did you have a china that is reaching across the globe from resources and you have an International Banking system that knows no national borders. In this age the question for me is that even a model for thinking about as relevant . The reason i started this system is a third year war very similar to now what is going on in the middle east of every faction fighting every other and some of them using their religious convictions for the geopolitical purposes. And at the end of the period which may be a third maybe a third of the population of Central Europe with conventional weapons they got together on a number of principles which was the basic unit of International Relations should be the state. The state that countries shouldnt intervene in the Domestic Affairs of other states and that the borders of the International Affairs began by attempting to have an impact on and that some kind of International Law should be created and that diplomats should be called into acceptance into the never happened before. And so the interesting thing is none of these people were overwhelming statesmen, but out of the suffering they still have a number of principles which then put several hundred years covered european relations and were brought by the europeans and by us throughout the world. Now some of them still of great consequence mainly the basic unit of International Relations should be the state and that if you conduct Foreign Policy on the purely ideological basis and try to undermine the state that it could be created disappears. Now, of course non intervention , the set of principles of conduct, these were useful instruments. The dilemma of the present period is that several things are happening simultaneously. It is attacked in many parts of the world and the nonstate or as are appearing that have covered used to be associated with the state. And in the Political Organization of the world of the Economic Organization of the world attempts to achieve which means it transcends. I am attempting to do in the book is to say here is where this idea of the order started. Sooner or later we will come to the concept of order because without it there will be no principles to govern and there will be no restraint on the exercise of power. How we get there is the big challenge because for us in america, we believe that our principles are the universal principles that everybody must accept. And i as an individual believed in the universal principles. But how do we relate to other societies, that is one of the great challenges we face. But as you point out in the book there are some forces that reject fundamentally the premise that you outlined. The one that viewpoint to which most alarm is particularly as the folks in charge practice that. If i read your book correctly, the people whove who really run around, the theocrat how many believe that its the only legitimate ways to the idea of saying if i read your book right you wont interfere here and we wont dare. At a basic level that is on islamic. Doesnt that pose a rather difficult challenge . Speck that is the internal debate that is now going on. And the point im making is at this moment there are three stories models in its own history. The experience of being a nationstate and pursuing normal or traditional nationstates which is more or less what they did. The second model they have is that of an empire. Iran was a great empire extending from the borders today and well into what we cover the middle east extending to the end of africa and you have correctly described which is the view of the present which is that of the islamic face and it should be the governing guide and therefore it is permanent and the view i expressed here is that iran has to make a choice. It doesnt have to announce the choice but it has to make a perceptible choice which of these three models it follows. One other thing iran is the only one that is in the middle east nor its culture and that it maintains the culture and language so its always a distinct feeling of Something Special about iran so at the end of november we are going to be confronting the end of the culmination of the negotiations about the nuclear weapons. And they have to be judged by the settlement and about what the alternate purpose of the air indian government. Heres an argument that ive heard. They seem to change theyve seen the change in you mention in your book forgotten part of history the 1957 mount saint goes to moscow and the fear of a nuclear war would lose several hundred Million People and if we end up with the communist a communist world, so be it. I gather that it was unimpressed by this argument. 14 years later during the regime the question is when you hear them talk as they do is it useful to point to an example like the evolution of china. Its now at peace with each other that even in Northern Ireland 800 years of violence is in the east. Should we take those examples and say all right. Maybe they will evolve out of their current series theories and come to a more salient view of the world. This section was only to describe what came to be boasted of things you cannot play exactly. You can apply the database and what message should there be in touch with each other and how do they communicate with each other and how do they try to achieve together . Perhaps this evolution occurs but it is not possible that as an american leader you say because everything revolves. Why dont we just sit back and let it evolve and we will see what happens. With respect to some issues, in the case of china the transformation that started out to be built as a model of resolution for the rest of the world that hasnt continued until it was the conflict with the soviet union and caused the soviet union to move 42 divisions to the chinese border. Then he looked at it as a practical problem in the states. How do i protect my states against this and the United States was the only available partner. The perception of the traditional ways of thinking is shown from the first day in office they had concluded that the attempt must be made to bring china into the International System he wrote a piece called asia after vietnam and there was a hand in the midst of the normal. China was in the middle of the cultural revolution, so it was very hard to know to get the dialogue started. But they wrote periodic reports about what they might do and they published the report and it is now available. They published a report in early july, 1971 while i was on my way to china which said it listed all the arguments i just made of why china should look to the United States but they concluded with this could not have been while he was alive. So one has to wait until hes dead. Today we know that it couldnt have happened and that he was alive. Thats reassuring that it hasnt changed all that much. His jacket was understandable. At any rate then china and the United States had to deal with each other. And they are all available now. The conversations say on my trip to china we were talking like to College Professors of International Relations. We didnt go through any of the technical issues that divided us because both of us decided independently that the this point the most important quality to be achieved was can we understand. If we go into this world of three countries, china, russia and the United States when they are cooperating with each other so we were building a kind of International System and i would say that it was about three years. There are so many areas to cover but you raise one of the areas that the critical step is to understand what the other person was how it is a point that is made and against the impulses of the advisers he kept trying to put himself in his shoes. So the question that this raises it seems to me that some of the United States biggest miss of steps have come from precisely the fact we havent understood the train or the people we were trying to act. Im not trying to be partisan because i can think of both but it seems the decision to go into iraq which from your point of view you did serve republican president s but its clear to me that you regard that kind of notion we would go into iraq and build a democracy in the middle east like a virtuous circle is really naive if not worse. They did the honor of inviting me to discuss longrange International Affairs. I developed a love of personal affection for him and his concerns. There was some criticism in my personal view. Now about the decision to go into iraq, from a Security Point of view after the United States had been attacked by terrorists in the middle east it was quite rational for the president of the United States to focus on a country that they generally believe is building a nuclear evidence. It turned out to be wrong but its also wrong to say that it had violated and have ceasefire agreement on many occasions certified by the United Nations and which might be the base and its also to remember that in the Clinton Administration in 1998, the senate voted in a nonbinding resolution 98nothing but the damage would be removed so this isnt an idea that bush introduced, and i supported that part of it. I disagree that after hed been overthrown that we had the capacity to make a democracy during the military occupation that not only was islamic and therefore have a different approach to the notion of pluralism but also in which there was a profound diversion between the shia and the sunni part and between the kurds and the sunnis and the shia so i think that is where. With respect it does seem to be me stomach and i explain why i think. It does seem to me that history has shown is yes there was a lot of rhetorical notion when the decision was made to seems that the history shows that people within the administration were determined to go to iraq and help shape the evidence and the notion that they were involved in 9 11 was never close to the inaccurate and to take your point throughout the book they were at best victims of delusion about what they could do. We are so pressed for time there are 25 other things i would like to talk to you about. The point is with a large purpose is of the United States in the construction and there are some things we are able to do and other things we cannot do. Before i ask the last question i have to make an observation. George bush and george w. Bush second inaugural address proclaimed that it will be to spread freedom and tierney everywhere in the world and i thought of you when i heard that because if you were watching at home you are proving something of a Television Set because it is so a misapprehension of how the world works. There were three levels of understanding. That is so vital to us and necessary. The second is objectives and security concerns which are important to us but we will try to achieve because they are beyond our capabilities or values. So this is the sort of discussion we need to have. If you have a question, raise your hand and please we have to come to a common understanding of what the question is. I will be exceedingly undiplomatic like doctor kissinger in making sure that we have questions. So thanks to the people. I get to call. Im sorry. Lets start in the front row if your National Security advisor what would you advise president obama to do sending troops to the middle east . Its very hard. Let me tackle the question in another way ive now lived so long that i have witnessed and in a way participated in the wars, some as an active participant in some as an observer that new the key players and if you look at the wars that the United States protected since 1945, we have achieved our stated objective in only one in the first gulf war. It was sort of a draw and the other three we withdrew from that each of them started like this one with great enthusiasm and then at some point the only thing was how do you get out of it. Withdrawal became the only strategy accepted as a general consensus. So what i would say to the president and security advisor and to you is tell