Interview: Henry Kissinger, December 18

dr. Kissinger there been allegations that the Russians trying to get involved in the u.s. elections what do you make of those allegations I can't quite understand what their purpose would be because on all the polls Hillary was far ahead and they could not have had information on the polls that others didn't have and then to antagonize the President to be by getting into an open support of the opponent doesn't make any sense to me they are undoubtedly hacking but the use that was allegedly made of this hacking isn't clear to me on the one hand you have President Obama saying that he's going to retaliate in some fashion for this hacking president-elect Trump says he's not even sure the Russians did the hacking how do you explain that big gap between those two what do you make of it could nobody everybody has a hacking capability and probably every intelligence service is hacking in the territory of other countries but who exactly does what that would be a very sensitive piece of information and how you communicated to the other side because you don't usually want to tell them what you know about their activities we don't know enough at least we haven't done enough internationally to constrain hacking it will have to be addressed as a problem but it's very difficult to communicate about it because nobody wants to admit the scope of what they're doing and I don't doubt that the Russians iacking us and I hope we're doing some hacking there then what use you make whether it's a hostile use that then becomes an international problem what do you make of President Obama saying he's going to retaliate what are your concerns about that I think to get into a wall post and a sort of a retaliatory posture in the last weeks of an administration when there might be counter retaliation clearly if the Soviets or the Russians Hatters us with hacking we should retaliate and it should be understood that we will but I wouldn't do that as a one-shot operation you've met with Vladimir Putin a number of times what do you make of him he is a character out of Dostoevsky and he is a man with a great sense of connection in the inward connection to resonate through his he sees it and he is a cold calculator of the Russian national interest as he conceives it and which he believes probably correctly has some very unique features so for him the question of resin identity it's very crucial because as a result of the collapse of communism Russia had lost about 300 years of its history and so that the question of what is Russia looms very large in their mind and that's a problem we have never had what's your feeling about president-elect Donald Trump who you've met with I had not thought of President Trump at the presidential candidate until he became a presidential candidate and in the first appearances I thought it was a transitory phenomenon but I give him huge credit for having analyzed an aspect of the American situation development strategy carried out against his leadership of his own party and prevailing now his challenge is to apply that same skill to the international situation you told Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic that with Donald Trump it could create opportunity but also serious dislocation what's your assessment now on that Donald Trump is a phenomenon that foreign countries haven't seen so it is a shocking experience to them that he came into office at the same time it is an extraordinary opportunity and I believe he has the possibility of going down in history as a very considerable president because every country now has two things to consider one their perception that the previous president or the outgoing president basically withdrew America from international politics so that they had to make their own assessments of their necessities and secondly that here is a new president who is asking a lot of unfamiliar questions and because of the combination of the partial vacuum and the new questions one could imagine that something remarkable and new emerges out of it I'm not saying it will I'm saying it's an extraordinary opportunity do you have a sense of what his emerging foreign power vision is fertile I have met him all that of I think he operates by a kind of instinct that it's a different form of analysis as my more academic one but he's raised a number of issues that I think are important very important and if they're addressed probably could lead to good great results one of the ways he succeeded as a politician in the presidential race was to create some chaos and then master the chaos he changed things around broke a lot of rules is there a foreign policy equivalence and what would that look like now take the point he made about America in Europe I would not have made it as a threat but it was a good it was an important point namely that after 40 years of NATO conditions have changed and it's important to reassess able the challenge is and people the contribution of everybody should be and that the contributions can't be kept constant no matter how conditions change that's an important question and in many ways it's the key question because I would argue that the disappearance of Europe as a strategic player it's one of the big holes in the international system for hundreds of years Europe was the key actor and now Europe is much more focused on domestic politics then on international so a lot of burden has fallen on us and a redistribution of that it's a very important issue Donald Trump seems to have a less confrontational view about Russia how do you how do you look at that well the first question is what are we trying to achieve with Russia what what is our purpose there has been a tendency to think of Russia as if it were a potential NATO country and that it should be like other NATO countries Democratic but Russia had a totally different history when we had the Enlightenment in the West Moscow was under Mongolian domination so or much of Russian history has been a fight against a hostile environment that came from that came from all all the writers so and now they have had a huge upheaval of losing much of their position in Central and Western Europe so the challenge is whether it is possible to have a relationship with Russia in which we recognize their special characteristics but they also understand and it's as it is we should not be in permanent confrontation with them and they should commit countries on their borders to have an autonomous existence but it's a relationship in which we should respect their own individual character and I believe it's possible but we we shouldn't deal with it in a mechanical way of putting every territory that if abandoned into military arrangements you said also to Jeffrey Goldberg that non-state groups meaning terrorists may make the assessment the Trump will react to a terror attack in a way that suits their purposes what did that mean well it's conceivable that some terrorist groups conclude that some of the muscular language of Trump would be translated into immediate reactions to provocations offered scope that they could then use to undermine the American position but I think if they've tested Trump that way it would be a very unvoiced cause were you worried about him overreacting now the administration isn't in an office yet and the actions of an administration don't just depend on a campaign rhetoric they depend on the interplay of the various elements in the administration and I don't mind in some situations it's desirable to have a reputation of not being very possible China a country you know so much about first Donald Trump has been he's talked about calling them a currency manipulator immediately he's talked about being very tough on China do you think he will maintain that posture from the campaign or what will he learn about China as he comes into dealing with it and I hope he wouldn't mint in and the posture during the campaign literally China is the country with thousands of years of continuous history and they have withstood a lot of experiences in in that period I believe they're now at a point where they are undergoing major domestic reforms and where they believe that a period of prolonged coexistence with the United States is in their national interest I believe it's also in our national interest because the interaction of these two societies around the world means that every country would have to choose and in and this is the structure out of its the first world war developed so I hope and expect based on what I have seen that the administration in its way we'll find a dialogue with Russia that with China that addresses this problem Donald Trump see apparently is very concerned about the threat from North Korea how important our good relations with China to counterbalancing North Korea well the challenge of North Korea is that here is a country which is really a private family enterprise that has developed nuclear weapons which can threaten the world and the code should be to get rid of those nuclear weapons an aspect of it though is when they get rid of nuclear weapons which is the only really successful thing they've done in their existence the regime is likely to collapse so then we will have a vacuum in North Korea and that's exactly what in 1950 that you a Chinese American war that you can argue in retrospect neither side wanted but was sucked into by developments in North Korea in Korea so I think it is very important that China and the United States come to some understanding not just on the nuclear question but on what happens afterwards so that not all neighbors rush into the vacuum and then drag us in that way you've talked about extreme nationalism taking over in different pockets of the world do you see it happening in America too I think in many in many parts of the world nationalism begins to substitute for for other ideologies and that symptoms of it in America they're stronger symptoms of it of course in many many other parts of the world you've advised presidents one of the things that voters have said about Donald Trump since he has no government experience is that he'll be able to surround himself with good advisers is that really possible or how much does a president need to have certain skills of theirs that they just can't get from advisers or can it all be done with advisers a president has to have some core convictions he can't get those from advisers but he also cannot possibly know everything and it's in the nature of the presidency that most of the people you meet want something so to get objective advice it's hard but it's ensel but that it depends very much on the personality of the president what advice would you give incoming president Trump about advisers about being the president in these times one of the hardest things for a president is to distinguish the routine issues that come through from the essential issues that affect the long term and not to let himself get sucked into the battles of the bureaucracy for marginal issues and to keep them focused and to keep his mind clear on what the fundamental things that he has to accomplish what does he want to achieve what does he want to prevent and for that it helps to have few people that he has some confidence in who however not necessarily tied to every battle that it's going on what area of the country is likely to surprise him presidents are often surprised early in their administration's if you were to say keep an eye on this it might be where your first surprise comes from is there an area you would tell him to focus on it's a very good question I'm going to prepare an answer for everything Adam I think you have identified really the key issues that that are likely that are likely to do it as dr. Kissinger thank you so much

Channel: Face the Nation

Views: 54,974

Keywords: video, henry, kissinger, donald, trump, vladimir, putin, cbs, news

Id: BAy5-OrWI3s

Length: 18min 29sec (1109 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 18 2016