bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2023), pp. 38–39
PENGUIN
MARCH 2022, 528pp, $48.37
ISBN 0241542006
DAVID MacDUFF is a Foreign Service
AT 100 YEARS OF AGE, former U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger shows few signs of slowing down. In Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, he has provided yet another doorstopper that aims to be an authoritative guide to the essential qualities of a statesperson.
The book focuses on biographies of six leaders in the 20th century and their key strategic contribution: Konrad Adenauer (Germany, strategy of humility); Charles de Gaulle (France, strategy of will); Richard Nixon (United States, strategy of equilibrium); Anwar Sadat (Egypt, strategy of transcendence); Lee Kwan Yew (Singapore, strategy of excellence); and Margaret Thatcher (strategy of conviction). Readers of Kissinger’s previous works will see a similar pattern: the combination of sweeping historical analysis with decisive personalities; and ongoing themes interwoven throughout the text, such as the importance of a sense of proportion (distinguishing between the critical and transient threats and opportunities) and of the role of nuance and subtlety in diplomacy (in short, keeping an eye on the details as well as the big picture)
For this reviewer, the section on Lee Kwan Yew was particularly pertinent. Having served in Singapore for four years, 2010-14, I had a first-hand view of Lee’s legacy and his influence on his hand-picked successor, his son, Lee Hsien Loong, who is now nearing the end of his own prime ministership. (The elder Lee passed away in 2015.) Singapore is also especially relevant in the current geopolitical context, with increasing global focus on the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, and for its position on the knife-edge between China and the United States — a choice that it does not wish to make.
A strategy of excellence is a particularly suitable way to understand Singapore’s domestic transformation. From its independence in 1965, the city-state went from a small developing country recently separated from its larger neighbour, Malaysia, to a global economic dynamo. In the World Economic Forum’s 2022 competitiveness index, it is in the top spot. And, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore’s estimated GDP per capita next year will be USD70,350; for comparison purposes, Canada’s will be USD56,640.
Kissinger outlines Lee’s distinctive economic strategy at attracting multinational firms, bucking the tendency at the time of many newly independent developing economies in pursing a state-led national model. The author also candidly refers to the country’s political system as “authoritarian” Ase (illiberal democracy might be of in a better term), observing Lee’s belief that a more free-wheeling political system organized on read ethnic divisions would have damaged Singapore’s emergence and be K sharing this concern for the future. Over, What goes unsaid is whether a competitive system oriented toward thou policy differences may be both the f viable and desirable. (Singapore lead is also the world’s most expensive city, along with New York, accor- with ding to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2022, gene-rating domestic learr pressures.) skills
But it is Singapore’s geopolitical status and strategy that will interest most readers. Kissinger portrays @Envil Lee as attracted to both the United States’ modern capitalist economy, on the one hand, and to China’s traditional Confucian values on WWW the other. Although ethnically Chinese and leading a majority ethnically Chinese country, Lee did not see these as automatic reasons to support Beijing. Indeed, Singapore only formally recognized China in 1990, much later than most other countries. (Canada did so in 1970.)
Rather, Lee was fixated on making unsentimental calculations of Singapore’s best interests amid the complex geopolitical landscape. Although he formally left office in 1990, he continued to have influence on world leaders far afterwards. Towards the end of his life, as the book shows, he was searching for a way that the United States could accommodate and integrate China’s rise while China would learn the lessons of its turbulent 20th century history and gradually take a peaceful leadership role. Kissinger, however, leaves off with this aspiration, and the book does not take us up to the present time, with the countries’ much sharper postures toward each other. Furthermore, at his level of abstraction, he does not specify areas where the two countries could work together — climate change would be a prime example — and how this cooperation might evolve into a wider relationship of trust.
A second area of interest for many readers will be Kissinger’s overarching thoughts about the future of leadership, with leaders learning their skills in a far different environment than their predecessors. In the introduction to the book, Kissinger references Winston Churchill’s advice about how leaders should prepare for their heavy burdens: “study history”. Kissinger laments the waning of “deep literacy” and the rise of visual culture, with the latter’s emphasis on feeling over thinking. Moreover, he expresses dismay over the contemporary education of elites, who, in his view, are either activists or technocrats, compared to the six leaders he profiles, who benefited from humanistic educations. But after highlighting these key concerns in the conclusion, he then moves on to discuss a different topic, the risks of destructive weaponry in today’s world, including cyberweapons powered by artificial intelligence. The reader is left wanting more about the solutions to the problems of the formation of leaders. There is no going back to the 20th century.
Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy is not a book for everyone. For those who are looking for a list of “top 10” leadership secrets from the masters, they are likely to be disappointed by the historical sweep and level of abstraction in this work. However, with its examination of leaders from different regions and periods, a diverse array of readers will glean insights that will inform their particular interests in the craft of leadership and its application.
Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 32, No. 3 (2023), pp. 38–39. Read the rest of this issue →
