US more polarized today than during Vietnam War: Kissinger
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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says the United States today has become more polarized than it was during the Vietnam war.
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Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
The United States is infinitely more polarized today than it was during the Vietnam War, former State Secretary Henry Kissinger said Sunday at the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.
The former diplomat who undertook the Department of State under presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford offered his vision on the current state of domestic politics within the United States.
He also denounced partisan antipathy that has been surging over the past few decades. The American National Election Studies' recent polls and surveys have shown that hatred between Republicans and Democrats has been growing.
In the early 1970s, he said, there was “still a possibility of bipartisanship” in the US, before the "hostility" firmly took root.
"The national interest was a meaningful term, it was not in itself a subject of debate. That has ended. Every administration now faces the unremitting hostility of the opposition and in a way that is built on different premises," he added.
"The unstated but very real debate in America right now is about whether the basic values of America have been valid."
Kissinger had previously stressed that the United States was unable to separate Russia and China, clarifying that the global geopolitical arena would witness many changes after the conclusion of the Ukraine war.
Kissinger also asserted his belief that the United States could create conditions to draw a line between Russia and China, noting that the factors and circumstances would fall in place on their own.
On the issue of China, Henry Kissinger believed that Beijing and Washington were "facing each other as the ultimate contestants" who are "governed by incompatible domestic systems."
He also said that expecting China to side with the West was impossible, adding that the world does not believe that global hegemony was a Chinese concept, though he does believe that China could become a superpower but not in the interest of the United States.
