The devastating impact of Kissinger's realpolitik

+ ChatGPT's first year – why people got hooked US Edition - Today's top story: A tortured and deadly legacy: Kissinger and realpolitik in US foreign policy [View in browser]( US Edition | 30 November 2023 [The Conversation] [The Conversation]( Top headlines - [COP28 begins: What to watch for climate progress]( - [Israel’s ethnic diversity]( - [‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ video game breaks the mold and cashes in]( Lead story For half of his very long life, Henry Kissinger – who died yesterday at 100 – exerted a profound influence on U.S. foreign policy. That influence, according to scholar Jarrod Hayes, was by no means benign. Hayes, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, writes that in Kissinger’s first book, the approach he would take as secretary of state and national security adviser in the Nixon and Ford administrations was already clear. “Kissinger argued [foreign policy makers are measured by their ability]( to recognize shifts in political, military and economic power in the international system – and then to make those changes work in their country’s favor,” writes Hayes. But “in this model of foreign policy, the political values – democracy, human rights – that make the United States a distinctive player in the international system have no role.” The realpolitik that Kissinger espoused and practiced produced some triumphs, but many tragedies as well, ranging from “fomenting coups that put in place murderous dictatorships, as in Chile, to killing unarmed civilians, as in Cambodia, and alienating potential allies, as in India.” And the policy decisions he crafted “were generally detrimental to the United States’ standing in the world.” And in [his analysis of Kissinger’s legacy](, Arizona State University’s Sophal Ear, who as a child “escaped the brutal Khmer Rouge regime with four siblings,” writes that he is “aware of the near 50-year impact Kissinger’s policies during the Vietnam War have had on the country of my birth. The rise of the murderous regime that forced my family to leave was, in part, encouraged by Kissinger’s policies.” [ [Miss us on Sundays? Get a selection of our best and most popular stories (or try our other weekly emails).]([]]( Naomi Schalit Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy President Richard Nixon, left, speaks with national security adviser Henry Kissinger at the White House in September 1972. AP Photo [A tortured and deadly legacy: Kissinger and realpolitik in US foreign policy]( Jarrod Hayes, UMass Lowell Henry Kissinger’s influence on US foreign policy was profound. His transactional approach – avowedly values free – included support of murderous and genocidal foreign leaders. Science + Technology - [ChatGPT turns 1: AI chatbot’s success says as much about humans as technology]( Tim Gorichanaz, Drexel University ChatGPT’s interface fueled the technology’s phenomenal rise to prominence. By being good at talking with us, it spoke to us. 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