What might be the consequences
with the Bismark's plotted
diplomacy?
Answers
Answer
Dominique Moisi JANUARY 21 2005
In the weeks before last year's election, George W. Bush apparently read with great interest Surprise, Security, and the American Experience by John Lewis Gaddis, the respected cold war historian. A reference to the diplomacy of Bismarck, the man who was instrumental in unifying Germany around Prussia, is said to have caught the president's eye: "Good strategists know when to stop shocking and awing; when to begin consolidating the benefits these strategies have provided. Having accomplished through three wars the unification of Germany, Otto von Bismarck . . . replaced his destabilising strategy with a new one aimed at consolidation and reassurance - at persuading his defeated enemies as well as nervous allies and alarmed bystanders that they would be better off living within the new system he had imposed on them than by continuing to fight or fear it. The revolutionary had become a conservative."
The newly inaugurated president's nominations - notably that of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state - seem to confirm that Bush II will be an imperial presidency. In such a presidency, where power is concentrated around the commander-in-chief, the models that Mr Bush follows and the historical figures with whom he identifies matter to the rest of the world. Should America's allies be reassured or worried by Mr Bush's surprising interest in the second phase of Bismarck's diplomacy?
Seen from Paris, it would be too easy to focus on the fact that the last of the three wars waged by Bismarck was against France. "Bismarck II" - the architect of the European order in the second half of the 19th century - is, to say the least, an improbable model for an American president at the outset of the 21st century. All the more so since this president has been convinced since September 11 2001 that God has chosen him to lead his country at this time of unprecedented American superiority and vulnerability. How can this religious, radical vision be reconciled with the strategy of consolidation and re- assurance pursued by Bismarck after his victory over France in 1871
Answer:
Bismark followed the policy of blood and iron.He made every citizen to join compulsory military service.He strengthened the military power.He isolated Austria,Holland andfrance with plotted diplomatic policy and defeated