Customer Reviews

The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Brzezinski has written a good, sober admonition for the Bush Administration, yet this book lacks critical macro-economic perspective. He does not delve enough into the stakes that oil and natural gas pose in the Middle East, and the bottom-line US/UK imperatives behind the current war. He also does not touch upon the dangers facing the global dollar standard, especially in light of America's massive national debt (at 3 times GDP) and trade/account deficits. These factors are inter-related and cannot be ignored in weighing why the US is at war in the Mid-East. They are also critical factors to consider when discussing incentives behind the EU and Asia viably alligning with the U.S., let alone the Mid-East calming itself with regard to America's presence in the Mid-East.

However, considering the author's pedigree and *seemingly* independent status as observer of current world affairs (Trilateral Commission and Council of Foreign Relations membership notwithstanding), this tome is a welcome change from the myopic, hawkish strategy coming out of the Executive Branch and its league of academic supporters. For instance, the author's consistent guidance to American strategists on how best to proceed with Iran is invaluably measured, researched and prudent. His treatment of globalization as a potentially divisive phenomenon, as well as valiant mention of the increasingly intrusive effects of various ethnic interest groups/PACs in American foreign policy considerations, provide important perspectives for American readers who may very well not see the collection of said perspectives from any other mainstream American political analyst.

I would also recommend "After the Empire" by Emmanuel Todd, "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson and "The Dollar Crisis" by Richard Duncan for a complete picture of what is truly at stake for the United States in this day and age. Said books help put Brzezinksi's suggestions into the proper context.

Zbigniew Brzezinski identifies the geopolitical Achilles' heel of the twenty-first century in an area he designates as the global Balkans-a geographical "swathe of Eurasia between Europe and the Far East," encompassing primarily the Middle East and Central Asia. "The Choice" is Mr. Brzezinski's analysis of the global Balkans coupled with his argument about what America's strategy should be in dealing with that unstable region.

Much of the argument runs on familiar territory, though Mr. Brzezinski's restatement is clear, concise, and comprehensive; but his analytical talents are employed mainly to support his central thesis in favor of a multilateral American foreign policy, rather than to offer new insights as to the nature or causes of instability in the global Balkans.

Broadly speaking, Mr. Brzezinski calls for strengthened alliances, preferably institutionalized, to contain the global Balkans. This strategy, Mr. Brzezinski maintains, has the added benefit of addressing both the sources of global instability as well as the potential power struggles in Europe and East Asia. His geopolitical mind runs much farther than the global Balkans and onto the future of the transatlantic partnership and the rise of China.

Although, Mr. Brzezinski tries to address contemporary debates, it is clear that his thinking looks much more into the future, into the potential geopolitical developments of this century. As a strategic vision, "The Choice" has the attractions of looking far ahead, while remaining well-tuned to the realities of the day.

At the same time, the book suffers from its brevity and scope-it is not rare for the reader to demand more depth and precision. Still, as a contribution to the broad strategic debate on the balance between leadership and domination, "The Choice" offers penetrating insights that policymakers can ignore only at their peril.

"Our choice is between dominating the world and leading it." That is how Zbigniew Brzezinski sees it, and it seems to me that the same choice applies to this November's election. ZB doesn't say so in so many words, but his new book is quite critical of the Bush Administration's foreign policy. Brzezinski was Carter's National Security Advisor, but I'm not sure if he is still a Democrat -- in any event, he has always been a hawk on foreign policy.

You can always count on Brzezinski for the use of good old-fashioned realist, geostrategic analysis to produce a coherent strategic vision. (Personally I reject the U.S. imperial role on principle, but if wishes were horses... ZB, as a practicing Machiavellian, knows that the Empire is never referred to as an Empire.) He says the principal challenge to American power over at least the next two decades can only come from within as there is no such power or conceivable combination of powers externally (a sober rejoinder to the more outlandish fears of Terrorist Evil). The challenge from within could take the form of either A) a repudiation of power, ie a turn to isolationism, or B) the misuse of power. Repudiation could come from either liberals or conservatives, while the misuse is most likely to come from the unilateralist tendencies of conservatives -- witness the current Bush Administration.

Brzezinski sees the main threat in the world, with the collapse of the old USSR, as "turmoil," or as he put it in an earlier book title, "chaos." This turmoil is not evenly distributed throughout the world, but rather concentrated in the Middle East and Central Asia -- ZB calls this region "The Global Balkans" to indicate its instability and frequency of wars. For the U.S., the "pacification and cooperative organization" of the region is the top strategic priority for the next several decades. He notes in the most fantastic understatement in the book that this area of strategic priority just happens to be where most of the world's oil and natural gas is located! (The U.S. Armed Forces should be renamed The Oil Police.)

Obviously the U.S. cannot accomplish this alone. Thus allies must be identified, created, and cultivated. ZB sees Europe as absolutely necessary for this, and unlike Kagan does not dismiss the Europeans' concerns. In fact he sees that it is the U.S. that must accomodate the Europeans in order to come to a more even-handed approach to finally settling the Israel-Palestine conflict with a workable two-state solution. Iran is another case where ZB sees an advantage for the U.S. to move toward Europe in forging a joint approach aimed at moderating Iran, which could again play a key role in stabilizing instead of destabilizing the region. ZB sees terrorism and WMD as symptoms, not causes, and that what is needed is a concerted, long-term plan, not a series of bombing runs.

"Leadership entails a sense of direction that mobilizes others." With this, Brzezinski challenges the Bush Administration's arrogance toward the rest of the world. He sees that the threat of "turmoil" requires "confronting complexity," and says that "[t]he political education of a large democracy cannot be pursued by patriotic slogans, fear-mongering, or self-righteous arrogance." Unfortunately it looks like that's what we've got for another four years, and if all the intelligent analysts are purged from the CIA it will be even worse. Talk about IMPERIAL HUBRIS...

I feel like I have been on an overdose of these books having read House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger (excellent book) - the biggest tell all blockbuster, The Choice by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Disarming Iraq, by Hans Blix, Noam Chomsky's Hegemony of Survival, Thirty Days (about Tony Blair) by Peter Stothard, and Price of Loyalty, Paul O'Neill, Why America Slept by Gerald Posner, Against All Eneamies by Richard Clarke, and the Rise of the Vulcans by Mann and Mann. I put together a "listmania" list of the 25 best books - the best books - mainly non political, no strong bias conservative or liberal - a spectrum of opinion when you take them all together.

There is certainly a wide variety of views and all of these books are excellent. I have read and for the most part digested the views and ideas and I would strongly recommend any or all of these books to get a diverse view. One cannot begin to give these books justice in book reviews. In any case there are generally two types of books, i.e: the "gotcha" books which try to show how Bush has made errors or done something illegal such as the Craig Unger book, or the "solution books" like Brzezinski, Soros and Chomsky.

Of all the "best seller" books on the market I would consider this present book by Brzezinski to be one if not the best books that deals with terrorism, the invasion of Iraq, and the future role of the US. Perhaps not the most exciting read (I think Unger's book takes that title) but still this is an excellent book. In this book he is very diplomatic in his comments of the current administration and he presents many well thought out ideas on how to deal with the Muslim countries, American demographics, how the world views the US etc. In some of the other books by say Chomsky or Soros some of the ideas are in fact quite similar to Brzezinski. Here he is also against unilateral action but he manages to calm down the rhetoric plus he suggests that some sort of world government or similar is not realistic and is many generations off. So instead of say going to the UN and supporting the UN or World Court in any absolute way he suggests shorter term goals that are a combination of working much more closely with the Europeans and then expanding that relationship later in stages (my comment baby steps). Also he seems to advocate more support for the Muslim countries to permit them to develop economically and socially.

All in all a well thought out argument, it is well presented, and attempts to make the debate a little more rational.

For all the fact that it might be doubted for accuracy, this book by an experienced and clearly highly knowledgeable US foreign policy expert offers a stark and truthful picture of the present state of affairs as the civilised world struggles against the spread of radical Islam, which clearly is preying upon the extreme wealth of the West and its rampant secularism.

Brzezinski's book is very well-written and stark, showing how the rapid growth of Islam and the decline of religion in the West and Far East in this post-state-capitalist era will be very difficult for everybody concerned. As Islam grows and Europe's population declines, we see the Middle East as likely due to its high fertility rates to develop into one or several major military powers that are likely to be a dangerous threat to the West.

Brzezinski clearly points out that the problems faced by almost every country in the West and Far East (primarily demographic but not exclusively so) means that the US, if it wishes to fight radical Islam, has no useful ally with which to do so.

"The Choice" clearly shows how militant Islam has arisen from discontent with Western influence in the Islamic world, and illustrates very clearly the various forms it has taken and the critical differences between them. We seen that radical Islam can take many forms and that it has adapted to an already-modernising Islamic world, in the process offering the only viable alternative to rampant secularism.

Art the same time, the author is not as despairing as he might be, shwoing that the US' being a target for radical Islamic groups means that it cannot sustain its role as a global dictator and can and must aim to change its foreign policy in order to counter these problems. he shows that at least in a few cases there is some room for accommodation between the West and the established cultures, and believes with very well-argued arguments that this is the only way to stop the world from succumbing to the very real threat of a takeover by extremist Saudi-style Islam.

This book, though most students will be taught to be sceptical at best because of its author, should be a keystone of understanding the problems of Islamic terrorism in the wordl today.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, former National Security Advisor and resident hawk of the Carter Administration, agrues in this excellent book that America is faced with a choice: either lead the world or try to dominate it. The correct answer or course is the former, and the Bush Administration has chosen the latter. Brzezinski is one of the brightest geostrategic thinkers in the firmament, and he offers a very clear and systematic policy statement on which direction this country should be going to achieve national security.

In the era of globalization, especially after 9/11, the link between national sovereignty and national security has been broken. With the growing interdependence of nation-states, our national security is increasingly in the hands of others. It is true, as President Bush claimed in the election campaign 2004 that we do not need permission from others to protect our security; it is also true that we need the cooperation of others in order to have security.

On a couple of points Brzezinski is in agreement with President Bush. The primary threat to international security comes from rogue or illiberal states - called the "Global Balkans" - that lie between the Suez Canal and the Khyber Pass, a part of the world that contains most of the world's oil and natural gas. The region also contains some of the most religiously inflamed, politically turbulent, and ethnically conflicted people on earth.
And to make matters even worse, they are festering with terrorist and criminal groups searching for weapons of mass destruction. It is in the interest of the civilized and energy hungry world to maintain stability.

America is the preponderant but not omnipotent power. America cannot stabilize the Global Balkans alone, nor with "coalitions of the willing." Brzezinski has a special place in his heart for Europe; he sees a healthy transatlantic alliance as the bedrock of global security. Europe and America are natural allies through shared history and culture. As a team our moral authority and political credibility would be greatly enhanced.

Another point at which Brzezinski is in agreement with the Bush Administration is on the primacy of American military power. Europeans and other allies understand, though they don't openly acknowledge, that global security is underwritten by American power. Brzezinski differs with the administration on how this power should be used. America may have the capablity of overthrowing rogue regimes in a few days or weeks, nevertheless, it still needs to build consensus in order to win a war. If the excercise of military power is not done with legitimacy will fail and backfire. Operations in Iraq (a good outcome is still possible) were executed in such a way that they spawned more terrorist groups, and even emboldened Iran and North Korea to press ahead with nuclear weapons development.

It was even more important to build consensus in the invasion of Iraq because, as we know now, it was a preventative war ( a war of choice), not a preemptive war from some imminent threat. The war in Iraq has given us greater insecurity, not only because it created new terrorists groups, but because our moral authority has been greatly undermined.

The task that Brzezinski lays before the Bush Administration is daunting given the events that have take place. And the European Union, for its part, cannot even agree on a budget and or a constitution, let alone a coherent global security policy. Nevertheless, American hegemony must be a consensual hegemony, not a domineering one. Globalism has brought us more interdependence, and global security can only be achieved through cooperation.

Zbigniew Brzezinski is considered by the Chinese to be one of America's top strategists (along with Steve Metz from the Army War College), and that is entirely his due. He is brilliant when it comes to state-centric strategy, but falls short with respect to emerging threats, sub-state threats, intelligence reform, and the roles of non-governmental organizations including religions, and civil networks instead of government-driven "command and control."

While it used to be fashionable, when confronted with a choice between, say, market economies and controlled economies, to cleverly say "some of each" and earn the top grade, today things have changed and the answer is more often than not, "none of the above." This estimable author, whose wisdom must certainly be taken into account at all times, does not actually present a choice, only an opinion as to how a state-centric system--largely irrelevant in the 21st Century--might best be managed.

Especially troubling to me was the almost complete lack of attention to substantive books published in the last ten years, including those, most recently, of George Soros (abusive capitalism), William Greider (immoral capitalism), Herman Daly (ecological economics), Jonathan Schell (unconquerable world), Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs), Thomas Stewart (the wealth of knowledge as an alternative to violence), and so on. The author is not alone in this oversight--Joseph Nye, whose book on Soft Power I am also reviewing today, bases his work on Op-Eds, many of them not written by the people signing them, and has almost no substantive references either. The think tank culture has lost touch with true scholarship.

The author's claim that Washington, D.C. is the center of the earth (pages 131-132) reflect in my view the last gasp of the Reagan-Smart Bush-Clinton era. While the author alludes to New York as the "other center", I and my colleagues think instead of a loose network on "nodes", some financial (Tokyo, London, Kuala Lumpur), some religious (Jerusalem, Rome, Salt Lake City, points in India), and so on. The author's emphasis on the Trilateral Commission and the now-dying World Economic Forum (Davos) as the bastions of a global elite that is in agreement struck me as being astonishing insular and inaccurate. The author says that "This elite is fostering the emergence of a global community of shared interest in stability, prosperity, and perhaps eventually democracy." I do not think so. All the other books I have reviewed for Amazon suggest that this elite is doing all it can to plunder the world by enriching micro-elites through corruption, while disenfranchising the broader publics (e.g. Canadian companies displacing villages in Peru to loot the gold, French companies buying up the water in Brazil to increase charges to the public for the water they used to own, etc.).

The author is to be commended for at least recognizing that America is losing its moral standing in the world, and this is an intangible value that cannot be easily purchased nor replaced.

In passing, footnote 4 on page 38 is inadvertently incorrect. There are 175 violent internal political conflicts, not 38. There are also 32 countries engaged in complex emergencies, 66 with millions of displaced refugees, 59 with plagues and epidemics, 33 with massive starvation, and 18 genocides now on-going.

The book ends somewhat quietly, suggesting a transatlantic convention and what one other reviewer very appropriately called "baby steps." My bottom line: Brzezinski is a solid citizen with a big mind and an old framework. He *must* be consulted for his wisdom as we move forward, but it falls to others now to define the bold new steps--faith-based diplomacy, ecological economics, public intelligence, global accountability of leaders--that are essential is we are save the world for our children.

ZB brilliantly analyzes the choices in front of USA, in its dealings with the rest of the World and the kind of role and status it can achieve and risks and feasibility of various possible policies. He is characteristically far reaching, almost mathematically precise and complete.

Though he is objective and does not promote any particular ideology other than the balanced and realistic welfare of USA, he is after all a man of "Detante". Those "entangling alliences" and the beloved NATO template keeps coming to the forefront. He is no unilateralist. He makes us aware that unless the current emerging powers such as China and India feel secure, and their vital interests secured, there can not be peace and stability for anyone. I think he understands dynamics of "Great Powers" better than most, and that is the World we are moving back to after all. The great polarization of East and West blocs, and to some degree North and South, have dissolved and a new multi-polar World has been emerging. He seems to have dismissed altogether that infamous "clash of civilizations".

It is a good read. There is a unique piece of insight and wisdom in almost every page. Well delivered and smooth. Stands out among many similar works. Highly recommended.

The analytical appraisal of geo-strategic choices confronting the US is throrough and revealing. Especially valuable is Dr. Brzezinski's vast knowledge which allows the reader of this book to understand how other countries' strategic view of each other (India to Pakistan to China, for example) then has circle-back implications for how the US should approach foreign policies with these nations.

The broad perspective of this book really goes past a bilateral approach of the US dealing with other countries in a hub-and-spoke manner. Other nations have strategic viewpoints of their rivals and neighbors that are independent of their explicit dealings with the US. All this in the end has implications for the US. The author brings these points home like few others. Dr. Brzezkinski has perched himself in a unique vantage point and the reader learns much from his panoramic view.

One issue I find with this book is that while it touches on crucial potential weaknesses of others on the global stage (examples: regional tensions in India, demographics and population decline in Japan, a depopulating Siberia next to China) I feel that a chapter dealing with the same potential problems that the sole superpower could face from within would have supplemented this text.

The persistently low savings rate, unsustainable current account deficits, and re-emerging fiscal deficits (as examples) have the the potential to undermine the economic predominance of the US. The rise of other countries in technological capabilities is another area where US predominance could be challenged. Dr. Brzezinski does not neglect these issues, but in his admirably long-viewed text, I get the feeling, after a few weeks of having read this book, that he may assume too strongly that American predominance (say 20-30 years from now) must be a given.

Such shortcomings do not undermine the book's valuable viewpoints. A primary strength of this text is its relative brevity. The Choice does not only respond to current events but augments the understanding of why we have these current events and, more crucially, of defining the need to know where we go from here.

"Preponderence, however, is not omnipotentence."

This short sentence is the essence of this short book's thesis. America is preponderent in the world today; it is the uncontested hegemon. However this does not given the United States carte blanche to abjure multilateral institutions in favor of "coalitions of the willing" in pursuit of an unending "war on terrorism" -- a war that, by definition, cannot end. I vehemently agree with this thesis. I believe the "war on terror" will join other phrases such as "war to end all wars" in history's marked grave of quixotic rhetoric (to paraphrase the president).

Because of this overly ambitious and interminable national strategy, we risk both losing strategic cohesion as well as isolation in the international community. In addition, our unilateral conduct fosters a "law of the jungle" that will in fact encourage states to arm themselves with WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in order to protect themselves. This is long term threat to national security and global stability.

This is not a critique coming from a naive peacenik. Zbigniew Brzezniski is a shrewd political operator and strategic thinker, and is responible for some of the more deviously Machivellian manuevers in American foreign policy history during his time as National Security Adviser under Jimmy Carter. He was in effect responisible for the policy that lured the Russians into Afghanistan in the late 70's, and he is unrepetant about arming the radical mujaheedin (this quote is taken from an interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, a French weekly):

"What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?"

From his past history, I can conclude that he does not oppose the Bush foreign policy because of some instinctive aversion to the exercise of American power; he opposes it because he thinks it is utterly stupid. Brzezinski's points are both well-argured and convincing.

I do not believe the book is perfect though. Brzezniski decries the Manichaean demonization of Islamic terrorists and admonishes the reader to understand the political basis for the violence. He writes:

"To paraphrase Clausewitz, terrorism is politics by other means ... Almost all terrorist activity originates from a political conflict and has been spawned as well as sustained by it. That applies to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in Northern Ireland, the Basques in Spain, the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the Chechans in Russia, and to all other groups."

To compare the IRA or ETA to Al Qaeda is folly. The nature of the organizations is vastly different. The IRA performed large numbers of smaller attacks in order to achieve a very specific political objective, rather than an totalitarian ideology of relgious martyrdom. I do not seriously believe that IRA or ETA would want to attack London or Madrid with WMD, whereas Al Qaeda surely would. Traditional terrorist groups have been more politically-motivated as opposed to ideologically-motivated, and this is an important distinction.

For Al Qaeda and the rest of the Islamic extremists, the political objectives -- if they even exist in the traditional sense -- are far more nebulous and ambitious, and the ideology is far more nefarious. In the words of their spokesmen "we love death and you love life." It seems as if killing is an end to itself. Unlike ETA or the IRA, I do not believe that Al Qaeda could be satiated by a negotiated political settlement.

The Choice also seems to lose focus as Brzezniski digressed into issues of globalization and demographics. Although these are extremely informative and pertinent to the thesis, they lack the clarity of thought of sections on American national strategy.

That being said, this is still an invaluable book in the foreign policy discourse, as well as a not-so-subtle attack on the incumbent administration's foreign policy in an election year.