Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a video address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Tuesday that Ukraine joining NATO would be an “appropriate outcome” of the war, reversing his previous position that Kyiv shouldn’t join the Western military alliance.
“Before this war, I was opposed to membership of Ukraine in NATO because I feared that it would start exactly the process that we have seen now,” Kissinger said. “Now that this process has reached this level, the idea of a neutral Ukraine under these conditions is no longer meaningful.”
Kissinger’s comments reflect an article he wrote for The Spectator last month. In the piece, he didn’t explicitly say Ukraine should join NATO but argued that “a peace process should link Ukraine to NATO, however expressed.”
In The Spectator article, Kissinger called for negotiations to avoid another world war and suggested referendums could be held to settle disputes over some of the territory Russia has captured from Ukraine. But his opinion on the matter appears to have changed.
While he still called for talks with Moscow in his address on Tuesday, he said on Tuesday that the fighting should only end after Russia is pushed back to the pre-invasion lines. “I believe in dialogue with Russia while the war continues, an end of fighting when the prewar line is reached,” he said.
The chances of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine are slim as Ukrainian officials are demanding a complete withdrawal and for Moscow to face war crimes tribunals before talks can even happen. For their part, Russia says it’s open to talks but maintains that any deal must involve the territories it annexed joining the Russian Federation.
Kissinger said that the conflict should be kept “from becoming a war against Russia itself” due to Moscow’s large nuclear arsenal. He also said after the war, Russia should be given “an opportunity to rejoin the international system.”
The former secretary of state angered Ukrainian officials the last time he addressed the WEF back in May 2022. In those remarks, Kissinger suggested Ukraine should cede Crimea and the territory separatists controlled in the Donbas before Russia’s invasion.
While known as a hawk for his infamous role in leading the secret US bombing of Cambodia as President Nixon’s national security advisor, Kissinger has long called for a more friendly posture toward Russia since the end of the Cold War. In 2014, shortly after the US-backed ousting of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, Kissinger warned that if Ukraine were to “survive and thrive,” it must function as a “bridge” between Russia and the West.
The longer this generation lives on the more harm and suffering they bring to this planet.
Kissinger doesn’t speak for his generation. Noam Chomsky gave a good interview with Lex Fridman on Putin’s war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uHGlfeCBbE&t=1400s
Perhaps, but it’s clear Kissinger and his kind seem to speak the loudest and cause most amount of damage to world peace.
Yes. This is probably a very bad indicator in that Henry has always been the direct tool/mouth of the oligarchs, indicating they’re all in, indicating Polish army fighting in Ukraine, indicating Russia attack on Poland, indicating …!
This is just another example of how Putin’s war is hurting Russia. There was no way Ukraine could join NATO while Russia occupied Crimea. By invading Ukraine, Putin created turned a security threat into an active open ended war that Russia can’t win and made Ukraine a NATO protectorate. Eventually the Russian people will realize the damage Putin’s war is doing to their nation.
Kissinger’s previous position proposed a solution without world war – a mammoth challenge. That challenge has just got greater. Nations continue to ignore history, ignoring the problem – and solution.
https://patternofhistory.wordpress.com/
“Antiwar” Kissinger–not. Warmongers with the blood of millions on their own hands don’t repent.
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/12/henry_kissingers_mad_and_illegal_bombing_what_you_need_to_know_about_his_real_history_and_why_the_sandersclinton_exchange_matters/
Kissinger should go six feet under…!
He’s past his sell by date.
Therrrre we go. That makes more sense.
Zelensky sent a letter to Xi proposing a discussion between the two of them. I hope Xi accepts. China would be the ideal mediator when the time comes for the parties to negotiate.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/zelenskyy-writes-letter-to-invite-xi-for-dialogue/articleshow/97095560.cms
Noam Chomsky said military aid from the US to Ukraine is justified but that NATO expansion and hostility toward Russia is responsible for the war. Check out Chomsky on Lex Fridman’s podcast at:
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=lex+fridman+316+noam+chomsky&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&tbs=#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:3287505e,vid:7uHGlfeCBbE
When has Davos accomplished anything other than being an echo chamber and party ground of a bunch of billionaires pretending to care about the world?
I think this is something that may be bargained away in eventual negotiations. I don’t think Ukraine will end up in NATO in the end
Kissinger doesn’t want the war in Ukraine to escalate because Russia is far more powerful than Cambodia. Russia is a superpower and that’s why we never went to war with them. Cambodia is as powerless as Iraq after the Gulf War. Kissinger is fine with the USA waging war, genocide and environmental destruction in powerless nations.
The male counterpart to Madeleine Albright.
This doesn’t really make much sense to me. Why would he flip flop? And not only that, but also his justification for the flip flop is not at all in line with his typical realist reasoning. He gives no justification for a return to the “pre invasion lines”. It doesn’t make any sense, unless someone “got to him”.
Please don’t mistake me. I understand Kissinger is no dove. But this still seems out of character to me. His opinions are wrong and violent, but usually not a pure parrot of government propaganda.
You’d think at 99 years of age, you would be immune from getting “got to”.
Why on earth would that be? Some old men maybe. But most old men don’t become the “wisened impartial stoic”. Why one earth should he not be subject to the same pressures and influences we all are?
Because he’s going to die soon? Because his life’s trajectory and his legacy, no matter how one views it, is going to be based on his actions from long ago, when he held power, not from his doddering comments now? Because what can be held over him? How, specifically, can he be “gotten to?” One assumes he has more than enough money to live out whatever remains of his life, no? Is his medical insurance being threatened? His burial plot? What?
Seriously? I think when (if) I’m 99, I won’t be able to be “got to”.
Glad to hear that. We’re talking about Kissinger, not you. People are different.
C’mon man, 99 is 99.
“Being 99 years old and ready to die I changed my mind and decided to help start world war three” – Henry Kissinger
Kissinger certainly flips, all right.