Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order Conference

The Director for the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs, Francis Gavin, and the Director of the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy, Mattias Hessérus, open the conference “Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order" on October 3rd, 2024.

---

On October 3rd and 4th, 2024, the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced Internatiional Studies (SAIS) and the Ax:son Johnson Institute for Statecraft and Diplomacy hosted a conference on Henry A. Kissinger and the Question of World Order. Prof. Francis J. Gavin, Director of the Kissinger Center, welcomed scholars and practitioners from around the world to Johns Hopkins SAIS’s Bloomberg Center to debate questions of history and the international system that Kissinger, as both a scholar and a statesman, had spent his life pondering.

Conference registration begins and scholars including the Kissinger Center's Ax:son Johnson Institute postdoctoral and predoctoral fellows were invited to attend. The Center hosts vibrant academic life at SAIS for it's fellows to study critical issues of world order and grand strategy.

The conference commenced with a panel on The Benefits and Future of Applied History with Professor Fredrik Logevall (Harvard University), Professor Mary Sarotte (Johns Hopkins SAIS), Professor Thomas Schwartz (Vanderbilt University), and Professor Philip Zelikow (Hoover Institution, Stanford University). Moderated by Dr. Maeve Ryan (Department of War Studies), this session spoke on how policymakers learning from history was both inevitable and indispensable.

Anne-Marie Slaughter (New America) and John Bew (King's College London) speak in the second panel

Bew also spoke about his work with the Kissinger Center on publishing Dr. Kissinger's undergraduate thesis, The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee and Kant. In March 2022, the Kissinger Center distributed the first print edition of Dr. Kissinger's thesis to the leading 100 university libraries across the world.

The conference was then honored to welcome National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who delivered a keynote talk in conversation with SAIS Dean James B. Steinberg to close day one of the conference.

The conference then welcomed Dr. Fareed Zakaria who spoke on on his latest book, Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present and discussed its themes with Dean James B. Steinberg. Zakaria provided a historial analysis of the current polarizedand unstable world.



This theme carried over to a panel on the Future of Europe in War and Peace, with Prof. Marine Henke (visiting SAIS from the Hertie School in Berlin), Dr. Alina Polyakova (Center for European Policy Analysis), Dr. Justin Vaïsse (Paris Peace Forum), and Iain Martin (Engelsberg Ideas).

Speakers left to right: Marina Henke (Hertie School), Alina Polyakova (Center for European Policy Analysis), Justin Vaisse  (Paris Peace Forum). Professor Henke is currently a distinguished visiting professor at the Kissinger Center as part of the DAAD Helmut Schmidt Distinguished Visiting Chair program. The program supports Professor Henke and two postdoctoral fellows to conduct research and engage wider audiences in the themes of the role of Germany and Europe and the future of world order.

In the final panel, on China, the United States, and the Future of World Order, Dr. Elizabeth Economy (Hoover Institution), Ambassador Shivshankar Menon (Ashoka University), and SAIS Professors Jessica Chen Weiss and Sergey Radchenko. The panel discussed a wide range of possible strategies towards China for the U.S. and its allies.