A couple of weeks ago I did a Kissinger piece on China and realism in foreign policy. But now, despite our present plagiarism pickle, I have just finished his Last Word before death at the age of 100, and I have more to say about this great American. In Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy, published in 2022, Kissinger reviews the lives and careers of six nation-state leaders personally known to him. Each of these leaders, somehow, rose above the ruck of mindless politics-as-usual to deliver just what their peoples desperately needed at the time.

For Konrad Adenauer, Kissinger tells us, the need was to obtain forgiveness for Germany's sins in what Kissinger rightly calls the Second Thirty Years War. For Charles de Gaulle it was to revive the spirit of France after a century of shame. For Richard Nixon it was to break the Cold War confrontation with an opening to China. For Anwar Sadat it was to find a way to peace with Israel and, not incidentally, make Egypt independent after a couple thousand years of colonization by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and Brits. For Lee Kuan Yew it was to create a First World Singapore fit to be a credible location for Kevin........

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