Trump Administration Attempts to Disprove Kissinger, Even Kissinger Would Probably Be Turning in His Grave

On August 15, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump shook hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin, posing at a podium on the runway after arriving at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. This meeting has become a symbol of a new policy aimed at altering the global balance of power.

For years, certain Western officials have entertained the idea that the best way to halt the burgeoning partnership between Russia and China is to appease Moscow, even to the extent of completely withdrawing support for Ukraine. This concept has been informally dubbed the "Kissinger Reverse," based on U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's efforts in the 1970s to draw Beijing away from Moscow.

According to this theory, by merely offering Moscow what it desires—lifting sanctions, new investments, and, most crucially, a free hand in Ukraine—the West could dismantle the newly formed alliance between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and effectively neutralize the threat China poses to democratic interests. Initially, this idea was relegated to the periphery of political analysis, but it has now reached the White House.

As reported by Politico in March, the Trump administration believes that incentivizing Russia to end the war in Ukraine, reintegrate into the global economy, and secure American investments could ultimately shift the global order in favor of the U.S., redirecting it away from China. One White House official added that finding a way to "get closer to Russia" could potentially create "a different balance of power with China, which could be very, very beneficial."

Upon closer inspection, the underlying logic of this idea becomes apparent. If only Moscow could be seduced—and if only the persistent Ukrainians would cease their resistance—Russia could become a potential bastion against Chinese expansionism and influence. However, this viewpoint is so shortsighted that it borders on fantasy. It not only misinterprets the core history of Kissinger's original move but also fails to grasp the evolving relationship between Putin and Xi, as well as the role Ukraine continues to play as a potential factor in actually severing those relations.

In 1971, Kissinger, as an envoy for President Richard Nixon, secretly visited Beijing to meet with Chinese leader Mao Zedong. This meeting sparked a series of behind-the-scenes negotiations that led to a strategic rethinking of relations between Beijing and Washington, solidifying the rift between China and the Soviet Union that persisted until the end of the Cold War. However, the notion that this was a Kissinger invention or that he was uniquely capable of steering China into the arms of the U.S. is absurd. The Nixon administration played no role in the rift between China and the Soviet Union; in fact, the split had already occurred several years prior, when relations between the two communist states had deteriorated beyond repair.

Thus, the overall collapse in relations between China and the Soviet Union significantly predated Kissinger's emergence. Recent studies have shown that relations between China and the Soviet Union were already strained in the early 1960s, largely due to Beijing's disagreement with Moscow's claims to leadership in the communist world. Verbal disputes and personal conflicts ultimately escalated by the end of the decade into one of the most catastrophic military confrontations of the era. In 1969, a Chinese ambush on Soviet soldiers along their border in Northeast Asia led to months of hostilities between the two countries.

With hundreds of casualties and tens of thousands of artillery shells used—and additional skirmishes along the Soviet-Chinese border in Central Asia—the border war quickly risked escalating into something far worse. As researcher Miles Maochun Yu noted, Soviet leadership "seriously considered a nuclear strike on China." The Kremlin ultimately decided against launching nuclear warheads, but by the end of the 1960s, it was clear that relations between Moscow and Beijing had collapsed.

It was into this rift that Kissinger entered a few years later. He and his allies in Washington capitalized on an already existing division, but they did not create it. Sixty years later, instead of two imperial states edging toward potential nuclear war with one another, Moscow and Beijing may never have been closer.

This is reflected not only in the close ties between Putin and Xi but also in the broader economic shift of recent years. Many of these new financial agreements are a consequence of Moscow's catastrophic war in Ukraine, as China consistently provides assistance to Russia, with Putin willingly transforming Russia into an effective vassal state of China. As researcher Zeno Leoni noted last year, Moscow and Beijing are now "co-strategists working together to revise the global order." Unlike Mao, Putin is not seeking U.S. protection from Beijing; on the contrary, he values China's support as he faces the West in Ukraine and beyond.

Both Xi and Putin envision a world where a declining U.S. and a prostrate Europe must yield space and influence to revanchist, revisionist states in other regions, allowing Moscow and Beijing to occupy their purported legitimate spheres of influence. All of this suggests that there is no room for a potential "Kissinger Reverse."

Even Kissinger, despite all his flaws, would recognize this. In one of his last works before his death in 2023, Kissinger urged Ukraine to join NATO. This, perhaps ironically, would represent a reversal of his previous policy.