Re-configuring the free world: Kissinger, Brzezinski, and the trilateral agenda

Did Henry Kissinger’s 1973 ‘Year of Europe (and Japan)’—initiative fall flat? Not at all, this essay argues. By focusing on the roles of Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who together dominated much of US policymaking in the 1970s (and shared a European background), the article maintains that such initiatives as the G-7 and the CSCE reshaped the relationship between the USA and its major European allies (and Japan) in a way that reflected the changing international environment but did not dilute America’s dominant position as the leader of the ‘West’.