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Geopolitica: Zbigniew Brzezinski and U.S. Geostrategy

The Grand Chessboard
Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard is nothing less than a blueprint for U.S. global domination drawn up by an insider of the American foreign policy establishment. Responding to Brzezinski's gaming metaphor, armed-combat.com examines the rules, brings them up-to-date and speculates on the final outcome of the great game.

Of Polish Catholic origin, Zbigniew Brzezinski grew up with a hostility to Russia which seems to have outlived the Cold War. National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski has also been associated with the secretive Bilderberg Group and founded its spin-off, the Trilateral Commission. An insider of the U.S.-based global elite, Brzezinski has been a key player in the influential world of foundations, institutes and think-tanks which comprise the bureaucracy of international policy making.

The Grand Chessboard is a work of 'Geopolitics' - the study of states in relation to geography. Although it may seem rather nineteenth century to those brought up in the quasi-religious milieu of the Cold War, the world does still consist of (potentially) conflicting sovereign states and would be readily recognised by Mackinder, Mahan, Haushofer and Spykman - Brzezinski’s historical geopolitical predecessors.


	"It is no exaggeration to say that the territorial imperative has been the main impulse driving the aggressive behavior of nation-states...Nation-states continue to be the basic units of the world system." Page 37

Writing from a U.S. perspective, Brzezinski frankly recognises that Eurasia is 'where it's at'. It's where most of the world's population and three-quarters of its reserves of natural resources are found. It's the stage of world history. And it's certainly the stage, or, in Brzezinski's case, the chessboard where the U.S. plays the great game of international power politics.

"For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia." Page 30

"Eurasia accounts for about 60 percent of the world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources..." Page 31

The main aim of U.S. policy is to prevent the emergence of a single dominant power or an alliance in Eurasia which is antagonistic to the U.S. and thus threatens the U.S.’s own world hegemony. But the U.S. does not have overwhelming power to prevent this, and precisely because of the disparity in size, numbers and resources between Eurasia and North America, the U.S. attempt to interfere in and control Eurasia is necessarily asymmetrical, a term that American military theorists have recently popularised in relation to weak powers using unconventional means against their own overwhelming military strength (e.g. ‘terrorism’).


	"..the issue of how a globally engaged America copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships - and particularly whether it prevents the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power - remains central to America's capacity to exercise global primacy." Pages xiii-xiv

Brzezinski believes that if America does not translate its current hegemony into 'world order' in this generation, the world will sink into chaos and anarchy. If this sounds Apocalyptic it's because it's driven by the desperation born of America's relative long-term decline.

Superficially, America is a strong player. It is not only the world's leading military power, but combines this with the influence of its economic and technological dynamism and its cultural appeal to the world's youth. But in terms of economic power and the military clout which goes with it, America is potentially challenged by the emergence of new powers such as Europe and China.

"In brief, America as the world's premier power does face a narrow window of historical opportunity." Page 213

"Cultural domination has been an underappreciated facet of American global power. Whatever one may think of its aesthetic values, America's mass culture exercises a magnetic appeal, especially on the world's youth." Page 25

"The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow..." Page 35

The current game begins in 1945 with U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan which are reduced to American protectorates. These provide the basic perches for the American presence in Eurasia, at least until the recent invasion of Iraq, but the security of these perches has to be maintained. The trick on the left flank of the chessboard is to promote a united but weak Western Europe under U.S. hegemony. Germany is the strongest economic power in the region, but it is also politically embarrassed. France is the only other country that counts. Britain can be dismissed as inconsequential and largely irrelevant. Japan is also very strong economically. It is virtually demilitarised, but shielded by the U.S. presence in South Korea which helps to avoid bringing this status into question. Strategically vulnerable, it is regarded with hostility and suspicion by other Asian countries, and thus cannot be used as the diplomatic cover for advancing U.S. influence. The main U.S. option here is to ‘play the China card’.

"The Sino-Soviet bloc dominated most of Eurasia but did not control its peripheries. North America succeeded in entrenching itself on both the extreme western and extreme eastern shores of the great Eurasian continent." Page 6

"...Great Britain is not a geostrategic player...it entertains no ambitious vision of Europe's future...Its ambivalence regarding European unification and its attachment to a waning special relationship with America have made Great Britain increasingly irrelevant insofar as the major choices confronting Europe's future are concerned." Page 42

During the Cold War the U.S. and Soviet players both enjoy a nuclear option, but if this is used the game ends abruptly. The players must, therefore, fight by proxy. It is in one of these peripheral struggles that a third, southern, front is opened in Afghanistan, providing the U.S. with a prime opportunity for establishing a presence in the Persian Gulf.


	"The United States, a non-Eurasian power, now enjoys international primacy, with its power directly deployed on three peripheries of the Eurasian continent, from which it exercises a powerful influence on the states occupying the Eurasian hinterland." Page 39

With the end of the Cold War the U.S. player is left in control of all the world’s oceans and seas, but its toe-holds on the Eurasian landmass remain precarious. Post-Soviet Russian could re-emerge as a powerful force and needs to be isolated by the eastwards extension of the European Union and NATO. This will not only push back Russian influence but weaken the coherence of the European Union itself and the likelihood of its emergence as an independent power rivaling the U.S.


	"It follows that a wider Europe and an enlarged NATO will serve well both the short-term and the longer-term goals of U.S. policy. A larger Europe will expand the range of American influence - and, through the admission of new Central European members, also increase in the European councils the number of states with a pro-American proclivity - without simultaneously creating a Europe politically so integrated that it could soon challenge the United States on geopolitical matters of high importance to America elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East." Page 199

In particular, the U.S. player must ensure that the Ukraine remains detached from Russia, and that American influence penetrates the post-Soviet central Asian republics. U.S. pressure for the admission of Turkey to the EU ties together the two halves of the western and southern front strategies. Turkey and the post-Soviet Turkic states of Central Asia play a peculiarly important role in Brzezinski’s view of the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union rolled back the frontiers of the Russian dominated state to reveal a series of ethnically Turkish areas which are endowed with rich natural resources and are strategically important. These states fall within Brzezinski's delineated "Global Zone of Percolating Violence" (map, page 53) which stretches from Turkey in the west to Kashmir in the east, and from Kazakhstan in the north to the Yemen in the south.

"...if Moscow regains control over the Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as its access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia." Page 46

"...America should use its influence in Europe to encourage Turkey's eventual admission to the EU..." Page 204

Within this area there is an inner ring which he describes as "The Eurasian Balkans" (map, page 124). This is also an area of ethnic and political instability, but is distinguished from the outer ring in also being a political vacuum. He regards the outer ring as already in the bag. The Asiatic Balkans are thus an area of major 'opportunity', and a particular project is the routing of oil by pipeline through the Turkic republics to oil refineries in Turkey, thus bypassing the old north-south routes linking this area with Russia.

Brzezinski's book was published in 1997 and at this point things are looking good for the U.S. player. The Islamic world appears to be on side. Turkey is a confirmed U.S. ally, and a range of autocratic Arab states need U.S. help to suppress mass support for Islamic Fundamentalism and their own overthrow. As the world's leading oceanic power, America has in many respects assumed the geopolitical role previously enjoyed by Britain. And like Britain in the nineteenth century, the U.S. homeland enjoys virtual immunity from attack. But that was before 9/11. It may not have changed the objectives of American foreign policy but it has changed America’s approach.

With the benefit of hindsight we can now recognise that the inevitably asymmetric nature of U.S. geostrategy resulted in a complex range of opportunistic local initiatives that were ultimately contradictory. While committed to Israel (its only deep alliance), the U.S. also supported Islamic Fundamentalism against the Soviet Union (Afghanistan) and secular Arab nationalism (Ba'athist Iraq) against another brand of Islamic Fundamentalism (Iran). The moral encouragement given to Iraq led it to invade Kuwait. The liberation of Kuwait necessitated U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia. A former U.S. asset and minor player from the forgotten war in Afghanistan, didn’t like American infidels based near the Holy Shrines and plotted the most audacious and spectacular atrocity in the history of world terrorism. The tragic impacts of the aircraft on 9/11 also symbolised the collision of the contradictions of U.S. policy. The particular path of causality would have been hard to predict, but all the pieces of the jigsaw were clearly of U.S. manufacture.

Instead of initiating some soul searching, however, 9/11 became a latter-day Pearl Harbour, unleashing the ambitions of a previously marginalised but now influential group of pro-Israeli 'Neocon' hawks who view Brzezinski as a wimp and even as an ‘anti-Semite’ because of his support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The U.S. adoption of unilateralism (we can so we will) and pre-emptive defence (you might threaten us at some point in the future, so we'll zap you first) are essentially based on the Israeli model.


	"But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being." Page 36

The new rules, written by the U.S. player their self, replace Brzezinski’s cautious and rational academic nuances by a distinctly Biblical tone in which enemies are cast not as players but as “The Evil Ones”. Targets are accused of developing weapons of mass destruction or having links with terrorism. The accusations may be combined or alternated, and no publicly cited evidence is required to prove them. Few other players will be seen to believe these accusations unless they are openly or covertly bribed and/or threatened. Iraq is a good target for this treatment, precisely because UN inspectors fail to find any current evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Any files suggesting that their previous manufacture may have been facilitated by the U.S. are waylaid.

The British Prime Minister specifically subscribes to the U.S. vision of a unipolar world under U.S. control, and the U.S. player can thus add British forces to his command, rebranding his military adventures as a 'Coalition', and as a crusade to liberate Iraq from the terror of an undemocratic tyranny. The U.S. player can then terrorise the population into submission with 'Shock and Awe' bombing after which the liberated country can be occupied.


	"With Britain self-marginalised and essentially an appendage to U.S. power..." Page 63

Once in control of Iraq, the U.S. player occupies a key strategic position. Firstly, Iraq floats on a sea of oil. Secondly it sits on top of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states which also float on a sea of oil. U.S.-occupied Iraq also borders Iran, an old protagonist, another member of the “Axis of Evil” and another oil-producer. In this position, the U.S. not only assures continued supply of its own oil but controls the oil supply of others, such as Europe and Japan. Coupled with its interests in the Turkic regions, the U.S. has cornered the market. But this isn’t all about oil. Iraq also borders Syria, and Syria supports the Palestinian guerrilla groups waging war on Israel out of Syrian-held Lebanon. The U.S. can now bring pressure to bear on Syria or even invade it.

Above all, the U.S. has consolidated its hold on the Persian Gulf and established a bridgehead in Eurasia which commands the intersection of Europe, Asia and Africa and is far enough away from Europe, Russia and China as to escape dependence upon them. But however good the U.S. position may look, we should not forget Brzezinski's essentially pessimistic temporal desperation. An empire also requires moral strength, or, as Brzezinski puts it, "cultural superiority". In considering the British Empire he notes: "By 1914, only a few thousand British military personnel and civil servants controlled about 11 million square miles and almost 400 million non-British peoples..." (Page 21). Do the Americans have that cultural superiority over the Eurasian continent whose civilization stretches back literally thousands of years? Brzezinksi's frequent and telling references to hedonism suggest otherwise. Talking of the Roman Empire, Brzezinski notes "the prolonged period of imperial hubris generated a cultural hedonism that gradually sapped the political elite's will to greatness" (Page 12). The U.S. Empire will almost certainly not last as long.


	"...cultural change in America may also be uncongenial to the sustained exercise abroad of genuinely imperial power. That exercise requires a high degree of doctrinal motivation, intellectual commitment, and patriotic gratification. Yet the dominant culture of the country has become increasingly fixated on mass entertainment that has been heavily dominated by personally hedonistic and socially escapist themes." Page 212

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