Since Obama's ascencion to the Presidency, there has been a renewed focus on many elements of foreign policy.  It is quite likely that few will equal in importance the new overtures being made towards Russia as it relates to new agreements on both nations' nuclear weapon stockpiles.

With the START Treaty expiring at the end of 2009, there is a unique opportunity to revisit the issue of how many nuclear weapons the US and Russia will maintain in their arsenals.  President Obama has made clear his desire to push for a dramatic reduction to the tune of 1,000.

President Obama clearly believes that by our limiting the number of weapons we have (which can only be done in conjunction with comparable Russian limits), the US will have the moral authority to reach out to would be nuclear weapons states and convince them that they need not continue moving down that path.

To that end, there has been some press coverage that then President-elect Obama essentially sent former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin and open the door to further conversations along these lines.  This article from a british paper details this rumour, which it must be made clear, both Obama and Kissinger deny.  Rather, Kissinger admits to meeting Russian President Medvedev, but never says he met with Putin, nor does Kissinger indicate that the conversations were in any way authorized by the President.

Of course, given Kissinger's long history of secretive diplomacy while serving President Nixon (see Paris Peace Talks with the North Vietnamese and, spectacularly, the opening to China where he feigned illness and secretly boarded a plane in Pakistan to  go to China without the press' knowledge), his protestations of Presidential intent may be viewed with some skepticism.

Clearly, Kissinger appears to want to cement his legacy as a peacemaker.  As I referred to previously, Kissinger is advocating heartily for a strong US-China relationship to manage economic issues.  Now, it appears, he is pushing just as hard to cement a strong US-Russian relationship in order to stem the seemingly inevitable tide of nuclear proliferation.  This article that Kissinger wrote for Newsweek, does an excellent job of outlining his positions on prolferation.  A few excerpts are in order:

"More than 200 years ago, the philosopher Immanuel Kant defined the ultimate choice before mankind: if world history was to culminate in universal peace, would it be through moral insight, or through catastrophe of a magnitude that allowed no other outcome?  We are approaching a point where that choice may be imposed on us. The basic dilemma of the nuclear age has been with us since Hiroshima: how to bring the destructiveness of modern weapons into some moral or political relationship with the objectives that are being pursued. Any use of nuclear weapons is certain to involve a level of casualties and devastation out of proportion to foreseeable foreign-policy objectives. Efforts to develop a more nuanced application have never succeeded, from the doctrine of a geographically limited nuclear war in the 1950s and 1960s to the "mutual assured destruction" theory of general nuclear war in the 1970s."

This paragraph is fascinating as it encapsulates so much of Kissinger's thoughts over the years.  He returns to Immanuel Kant, the philosopher that developed the concept of the "categorical imperative" and the notion of cosmopolitan, perpetual peace as a way to explain the juncture he feels we are at when it comes to the future of nuclear weapons.  Of course, Kissinger spent a lot of time with Kant in his younger days, writing his senior thesis at Harvard (the longest thesis ever written at Harvard) on the topic of the "Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee, and Kant."  Though by no means a Kantian in the sense that Kant is somewhat of a determinst (as are both Spengler and Toynbee), it appears Kissinger wanted to avoid the full blown pessism inherent in at least Spengler's views of the "Decline of the West."  Kant did accomplish this at a certain, though imperfect level.

Given that consideration, for Kissinger now to return to Kant so late in his career, and quite likely his life, is telling.  This is especially so given the issue of choice which has always been at the core of his thought.  Additionally in the paragraph above, you can also see references to the debates over the use of nuclear weapons from previous eras of the Cold War.  Kissinger was quite influential in those early debates.  In fact, the "nuanced application" was very much an idea he expounded upon in one of the books that brought him to the attention of a mass audience, or at least and audience of key policy intellectuals.

That he now embraces a Kantian choice and is critical of not just the theory of "Mutually Assured Destruction" but his own previous inclinations towards flexibility in the use of nuclear weapons, shows a man in a reflective mood pondering how to shape a legacy that will outlive his own immediate impact.

Is this, what is driving this push by Kissinger?  I know that other famous gray beards of foreign policy: Sam Nunn, George Schultz, and William Perry have signed on as supporters of renewed efforts at nuclear arms reductions.  But it is Kissinger who is most interesting.  For a man so often vilified as an unscrupulous "realpolitiker" who was more Machiavelli than Kant, it appears he is trying his hand at embracing a high morality that can be viewed favorable by those not inculcated by the dour spirit of European "realism."

In his Harvard thesis Kissinger has been quoted saying: "Transitoriness is the fate of existence. No civilization has yet been permanent, no longing completely fulfilled. This is necessity, the fatedness of history, the dilemma of mortality.”

It appears Kissinger is tempting fate by attempting to resolve one of the thorniest of moral dilemas.  He is much too intelligent to believe this to be an easy task, or even one that can be completed.  He states this in the Newsweek piece, "My colleague Sam Nunn has described the effort as akin to climbing a mountain shrouded in clouds. We cannot describe its top nor be certain that there may not be unforeseen and perhaps insurmountable obstacles on the way. But we are prepared to undertake the journey in the belief that the summit will never come into view unless we begin the ascent and deal with the proliferation issues immediately before us, including the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs."

I have long argued we are entering the "Golden Age of Proliferation."  Kissinger is making a last gasp effort to block this as he says it is not inevitable.  However, his own admonition, "Our age has stolen fire from the gods; can we confine it to peaceful purposes before it consumes us?" I believe betrays what he thinks will ultimately happen. 

Prometheus stole fire and suffered immensely for his hubris.  From the day we successfully developed nuclear weapons, we too stole fire.  Thus far, except for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, mankind has avoided a similar fate despite our trangression.   Can such fate be tempted indefinitely? 

History will be the judge.  I hope we choose wisely, not rashly and not naively.