Before he became one of the great diplomats of the twentieth century, Henry Kissinger wrote his dissertation about the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich. Kissinger closely studied how European diplomats like Metternich constructed a new regional order after the defeat of Napoleon. Metternich was an early expert in the art of herding cats, with the felines being powerful European leaders.

Drawing on those insights during his stint as national security advisor under Richard Nixon, Kissinger famously orchestrated the U.S. détente with China and a raft of arms control treaties with the Soviet Union. He also introduced “shuttle diplomacy” in his successful efforts to reduce animosities in the Middle East. He shared a Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the negotiations to end the Vietnam War.

Kissinger was no peacenik. He was involved in any number of military interventions and morally indefensible actions, such as destabilizing Chile under socialist Salvador Allende and supporting Pakistan in its genocidal campaign against Bengalis. In the case of the Vietnam War, he was a key architect of the secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Laos, an involvement that calls into question the legitimacy of his Nobel Peace Prize. He was both a master diplomat and a war criminal.

The United States has long operated in these two registers: deploying overwhelming military force and using its diplomatic skills to broker peace deals. The two strategies have often gone hand in hand, as they did with Kissinger.

But what was once a matter of some sophistication—if often wrapped in secret........

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