“The process of democratization does not depend on a single decision and will not be completed in a single stroke. Elections, however desirable, are only the beginning of a long enterprise.”-Kissinger

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post regarding the challenges facing the U.S. foreign policy of democracy implementation , Henry Kissinger cautions that while extraordinary advances of democracy throughout the Muslim world have been interpreted recently as validation of an idealist foreign policy; the push for democratic reform within authoritarian societies should not ignore strategic interests and must be in proportion to the dictates of realism within the construction of U.S. foreign policy. In pushing this “freedom agenda”, he argues that the United States must establish priorities because “No single nation is strong enough or wise enough to involve itself in every political evolution around the world simultaneously.”

Kissinger notes that this means in some cases that the push for democratic change in countries such as China has to be postponed in favor of confronting geopolitical challenges which are of greater importance to our national interest and security. He lends increased support to his argument by pointing to the case of the American strategic partnership with democratic India. With India, the U.S. partnership is based less on common democratic structures and more on security interests such as nuclear stability and the spread of radical Islam in Southeast Asia.

Therefore, he argues that our “freedom agenda” must be cognizant of the fact that “The process of democratization does not depend on a single decision and will not be completed in a single stroke. Elections, however desirable, are only the beginning of a long enterprise.” More importantly, Kissinger warns that Western democratic models which have applied in tested in the ethnically and religiously homogeneous societies in Europe and the United States may not be successfully implemented because in multiethnic societies that the majority ethnic group utilizes power in order to subjugate other minority groups. As a result, he believes that the multiethnic democratic model must incorporate a strong federal structure and a system of checks and balances. In the end, in order to seize the opportunity to implement systemic change, Kissinger concludes that the United States must focus on specific circumstances to apply President’s Bush’s vision in order to avoid a physical overextension which would likely trigger a nationalist backlash against perceived American hegemonic desires.