“The Grand Chessboard” is a geopolitical analysis by Zbigniew Brzezinski that explores the importance of Eurasia in shaping global power dynamics. Brzezinski argues that the key to global dominance lies in controlling Eurasia, the vast landmass that stretches from Europe to Asia, and that the United States must pursue a strategy to maintain its preeminence in this critical region.
Brzezinski begins by examining the historical significance of Eurasia and its role as the “pivot” of global power. He highlights the geopolitical importance of the region, which is home to the world’s largest population, most abundant natural resources, and most dynamic economies.
The author then discusses the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, which he argues created a power vacuum in Eurasia. He explores how the dissolution of the Soviet empire led to the emergence of new states and power struggles in the region, as well as the reassertion of Russia’s influence.
Brzezinski analyzes the geopolitical dynamics of Eurasia, focusing on the rivalry between the major powers vying for control of the region. He identifies Russia, China, and the European Union as the key players, each with their own strategic interests and aspirations for regional dominance.
The author examines the challenges facing the United States in maintaining its hegemony in Eurasia, including the rise of regional powers, the spread of radical ideologies, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He argues that the United States must adopt a comprehensive strategy to address these challenges and safeguard its interests in the region.
Brzezinski discusses the importance of fostering stability and cooperation in Eurasia through diplomatic engagement, economic integration, and military alliances. He emphasizes the need for the United States to build strong partnerships with key allies and leverage its economic and military power to shape the geopolitical landscape of the region.
The author also explores the role of ideology and identity in shaping the politics of Eurasia, from the rise of nationalism and separatism to the spread of Islamic extremism. He argues that these ideological factors must be taken into account in formulating U.S. foreign policy and that the United States must support moderate and democratic forces in the region.
Brzezinski discusses the challenges posed by the rise of China as a global power and its growing influence in Eurasia. He explores the strategic implications of China’s economic expansion and military modernization for the balance of power in the region and argues that the United States must adopt a nuanced approach to managing its relationship with China.
The author examines the role of energy resources in shaping the geopolitics of Eurasia, particularly the competition for control of oil and natural gas reserves. He discusses how energy pipelines and infrastructure projects have become strategic assets in the struggle for regional influence and argues that the United States must diversify its energy sources and promote energy security in the region.
In conclusion, “The Grand Chessboard” provides a comprehensive analysis of the geopolitical dynamics of Eurasia and the challenges facing the United States in maintaining its global dominance. Brzezinski offers insights into the strategic imperatives shaping U.S. foreign policy and argues for a proactive and multidimensional approach to safeguarding American interests in the critical region of Eurasia.
The combination of global geopolitical scope and the proclaimed universality of the competing dogmas gave the contest unprecedented intensity. But an additional factor — also imbued with global implications — made the contest truly unique. The advent of nuclear weapons meant that a head-on war, of classical type, between the principal contestants would not only spell their mutual destruction but could unleash lethal consequences for a significant portion of humanity. The intensity of the conflict was thus simultaneously subjected to extraordinary self-restraint on the part of both rivals.
In the geopolitical realm, the conflict was waged largely on the peripheries of Eurasia itself. 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 eastern shores of the great Eurasian continent. The defense of these continental bridgeheads (epitomized on the western “from” by the Berlin blockade and on the eastern by the Korean War) was thus the first strategic test of what came to be known as the Cold War.
The American-led coalition retained its unity, whereas the Sino-Soviet bloc split within less than two decades. In part, this was due to the democratic coalition’s greater flexibility, in contrast to the hierarchical and dogmatic — but also brittle — character of the Communist camp. The former involved shared values, but without a formal doctrinal format. The latter emphasized dogmatic orthodoxy, with only one valid interpretative center. America’s principal vassals were also significantly weaker than America, whereas the Soviet Union could not indefinitely treat China as a subordinate. The outcome was also due to the fact that the American side proved to be economically and technologically much more dynamic, whereas the Soviet Union gradually stagnated and could not effectively compete either in economic growth or in military technology. Economic decay in turn fostered ideological demoralization.
In fact, Soviet military power — and the fear it inspired among westerners — for a long time obscured the essential asymmetry between the two contestants. America was simply much richer, technologically much more advanced, militarily more resilient and innovative, socially more creative and appealing. Ideological constraints also sapped the creative potential of the Soviet Union, making its system increasingly rigid and its economy increasingly wasteful and technologically less competitive. As long as a mutually destructive war did not break out, in a protracted competition the scales had to tip eventually in America’s favor.
The final outcome was also significantly influenced by cultural considerations. The American-led coalition, by and large, accepted as positive many attributes of America’s political and social culture. America’s two most important allies on the western and eastern peripheries of the Eurasian continent, Germany and Japan, both recovered their economic health in the context of almost unbridled admiration for all things American. America was widely perceived as representing the future, as a society worthy of admiration and deserving of emulation.
In contrast, Russia was held in cultural contempt by most of its Central European vassals and even more so by its principal and increasingly assertive eastern ally, China. For the Central Europeans, Russian domination meant isolation from what the Central Europeans considered their philosophical and cultural home: Western Europe and its Christian religious traditions. Worse than that, it meant domination by a people whom the Central Europeans, often unjustly, considered their cultural inferior.
The Chinese, for whom the word “Russia” means “the hungry land,” were even more openly contemptuous. Although initially the Chinese had only quietly contested Moscow’s claims of universality for the Soviet model, within a decade following the Chinese Communist revolution they mounted an assertive challenge to Moscow’s ideological primacy and even began to express openly their traditional contempt for the neighboring northern barbarians.
As in the past, the exercise of American “imperial” power is derived in large measure from superior organization, from the ability to mobilize vast economic and technological resources promptly for military purposes, from the vague but significant cultural appeal of the American way of life, and from the sheer dynamism and inherent competitiveness of the American social and political elites.
At the empire’s apex, the Roman legions deployed abroad numbered no less than 300,000 men — a remarkable force, made all the more lethal by the Roman superiority in tactics and armaments as well as by the center’s ability to direct relatively rapid redeployment. (It is striking to note that in 1996, the vastly more populous supreme power, America, was protecting the outer reaches fo its dominion by stationing 296,000 professional soldiers overseas.)
Rome’s imperial power, however, was also derived from an important psychological reality. Civis Romanus sum — “I am a Roman citizen” — was the highest possible self-definition, a source of pride, and an aspiration for many. Eventually granted even to those not of Roman birth, the exalted status of the Roman citizen was an expression of cultural superiority that justified the imperial power’s sense of mission. It not only legitimated Rome’s rule, but it also inclined those subject to it to desire assimilation and inclusion in the imperial structure. Cultural superiority, taken for granted by the rulers and conceded by the subjugated, thus reinforced imperial power.
Three major causes led to the eventual collapse of the Roman Empire. First, the empire became too large to be governed from a single center, but splitting it into western and eastern halves automatically destroyed the monopolistic character of its power. Second, at the same time, the prolonged period of imperial hubris generated a cultural hedonism that gradually sapped the political elite’s will to greatness. Third, sustained inflation also undermined the capacity of the system to sustain itself without social sacrifice, which the citizens were no longer prepared to make. Cultural decay, political division, and financial inflation conspired to make Rome vulnerable even to the barbarians in its near abroad.
The decline and fall of the several Chinese empires was also primarily due to internal factors. Mongol and later occidental “barbarians” prevailed because internal fatigue, decay, hedonism, and loss of economic as well as military creativity sapped and then accelerated the collapse of Chinese will. Outside powers exploited China’s internal malaise which, in turn, generated the profound sense of humiliation all the more intense because of the collision between their ingrained sense of cultural superiority and the demeaning political realities of postimperial China.
The large and dominant ethnic core made it possible for China to achieve periodic imperial restoration. In that respect, China was quite unlike other empires, in which numerically small but hege-monically motivated people were able for a time to impose and maintain domination over much larger ethnically alien populations. However, once the domination of such small-core empires was undermined, imperial restoration was out of the question.
Mongol imperial power was largely based on military domination. Achieved through the brilliant and ruthless application of superior military tactics that combined a remarkable capacity for rapid movement of forces with their timely concentration, Mongol rule entailed no organized economic or financial system, nor was Mongol authority derived from any assertive sense of cultural superiority. The Mongol rulers were to thin numerically to represent a self-regenerating ruling class, and in many case, the absence of a defined and self-conscious sense of cultural or even ethnic superiority deprived the imperial elite of the needed subjective confidence.
In fact, the Mongol rulers proved quite susceptible to gradual assimilation by the often culturally more advanced peoples they had conquered. Thus, on of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, who had become the emperor of the Chinese part of the great Khan’s realm, became a fervent propagator of Confucianism; another became a devout Muslim in his capacity as the sultan of Persia; and a third became the culturally Persian ruler of Central Asia.
It was that factor — assimilation of the rulers by the ruled because of the absence of a dominant political culture — as well as unresolved problems of succession to the great Khan who had founded the empire, that caused the empire’s eventual demise. The Mongol realm had become too big to be governed from a single center, but the solution attempted — dividing the empire into several self-contained parts — prompted still more rapid local assimilation and accelerated the imperial disintegration. After lasting two centuries, from 1206 to 1405, the world’s largest land-based empire disappeared without a trace.
Great Britain was clearly paramount overseas, but like the earlier European aspirants to global hegemony, the British Empire could not single-handedly dominate Europe. Instead, Britain relied on an intricate balance-of-power diplomacy and eventually on an Anglo-French entente to prevent continental domination by either Russia or Germany.
The overseas British Empire was initially acquired through a combination of exploration, trade, and conquest. But much like its Roman and Chinese predecessors or its French and Spanish rivals, it also derived a great deal of its staying power from the perception of British cultural superiority. That superiority was not only a matter of subjective arrogance on the part of the imperial ruling class but was a perspective shared by many of the non-British subjects. Cultural superiority, successfully asserted and quietly conceded, had the effect of reducing the need to rely on large military forces to maintain the power of the imperial center. 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.
Even Great Britain was not a truly global power. It did not control Europe but only balanced it. A stable Europe was crucial to British international preeminence, and Europe’s self-destruction inevitably marked the end of British primacy.
In brief, America stands supreme in the four decisive domains of global power: military, it has an unmatched global reach; economically, it remains the main locomotive of global growth, even if challenged in some aspects by Japan and Germany (neither of which enjoys the other attributes of global might); technologically, it retains the overall lead in the cutting-edge areas of innovation; and culturally, despite some crassness, it enjoys an appeal that is unrivaled, especially among the world’s youth — all of which gives the US a political clout that no other state comes close to matching. It is the combination of all four that makes America the only comprehensive global superpower.
America has become a Mecca for those seeking advanced education, with approximately half a million foreign students flocking to the US, with many of the ablest never returning home. Graduates from American universities are to be found in almost every Cabinet on every continent.
In addition, one must consider as part of the American system the global web of specialized organizations, especially the “international” financial institutions. The IMF and the World Bank can be said to represent “global” interests, and their constituency may be construed as the world. In reality, however, they are heavily American dominated and their origins are traceable to American initiative, particularly, the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944.
Unlike earlier empires, this vast and complex global system is not a hierarchical pyramid. Rather, America stands at the center of an interlocking universe, one in which power is exercised through continuous bargaining, dialogue, diffusion, and quest for formal consensus, even though that power originates ultimately from a single source, namely, Washington DC. And that is where the power game has to be played, and played according to America’s domestic rules. Perhaps the highest compliment that the world pays to the centrality of the democratic process in American global hegemony is the degree to which foreign countries are themselves drawn into the domestic American political bargaining. To the extent that they can, foreign governments strive to mobilize those Americans with whom they share a special ethnic or religious identity. Most foreign governments also employ American lobbyists to advance their case, especially in Congress, in addition to approximately one thousand special foreign interest groups registered as active in America’s capital.
American supremacy has thus produced a new international order that not only replicates but institutionalized abroad many of the features of the American system itself. Its basic features include:
- A collective security system, including integrated command and forces (NATO, the US-Japan Security Treaty, and so forth)
- Regional economic cooperation (APEC, NAFTA) and specialized global cooperative institutions (the World Bank, IMF, WTO)
- Procedures that emphasize consensual decision making, even if dominated by the US
- A preference for democratic membership within key alliances
- A rudimentary global constitutional and judicial structure (ranging from the World Court to a special tribunal to try Bosnian war crimes).
The scope of America’s global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints. American hegemony involves the exercise of decisive influence but, unlike the empires of the past, not of direct control. The very scale and diversity of Eurasia, as well as the power of some of its states, limits the depth of American influence and the scope of control over the course of events. That megacontinent is just too large, too populous, culturally too varied, and composed of too many historically ambitious and politically energetic states to be compliant toward even the most economically successful and politically preeminent global power. This condition places a premium on geostrategic skill, on the careful, selective, and very deliberate deployment of America’s resources on the huge Eurasian chessboard.
It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Moreover, most Americans by and large do not derive any special gratification from their country’s new status as the sole global superpower.
Compounding the dilemmas facing the American leadership are the changes in the character of the global situation itself: the direct use of power now tends to be more constrained than was the case in the past. Nuclear weapons have dramatically reduced the utility of war as a tool of policy or even as a threat. The growing economic interdependence among nations is making the political exploitation of economic blackmail less compelling. Thus maneuver, diplomacy, coalition building, co-optation, and the very deliberate deployment of one’s political assets have become the key ingredients of the successful exercise of geostrategic power on the Eurasian chessboard.
Napoleon once said that to know a nation’s geography was to know its foreign policy.
Nation-states continue to be the basic units of the world system. Although the decline in big-power nationalism and the fading of ideology has reduced the global politics — while nuclear weapons have introduced major restraints on the use of force — competition based on territory still dominates world affairs, even if its form currently tend to be more civil. In that competition, geographic location is still the point of departure for the definition of a nation-state’s external priorities, and the size of national territory also remains one of the major criteria of status and power.
The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
For whatever reason — the quest for national grandeur, ideological fulfillment, religious messianism, or economic aggrandizement — some states do seek to attain regional domination or global standing. They are driven by deeply rooted and complex motivations, best explained by Robert Browning’s phrase: “…a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Great Britain, to be sure, still remains important to America. It continues to wield some degree of global influence through the Commonwealth, but it is neither a restless major power nor is it motivated by an ambitious vision. It is America’s key supporter, a very loyal ally, a vital military base, and a close partner in critically important intelligence activities. Its friendship needs to be nourished, but its policies do not call for sustained attention. It is a retired geostrategic player, resting on its splendid laurels, largely disengaged from the general European adventure in which France and Germany are the principal actors.
The case for not listing Indonesia as a dynamic geostrategic player is easier to make. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is the most important country, but even in the region itself, its capacity for projecting significant influence is limited by the relatively underdeveloped state of the Indonesian economy, its continued internal political uncertainties, its dispersed archipelago, and its susceptibility to ethnic conflicts that are exacerbated by the central role exercised in its internal financial affairs by the Chinese minority. At some point, Indonesia could become an important obstacle to Chinese southward aspirations. But a period of political consolidation and continued economic success is needed before Indonesia can be viewed as the regionally dominant actor.
The problem, however, is that a truly European “Europe” as such does not exist. It is a vision, a concept, and a goal, but it si not yet reality. Western Europe is already a common market, but it is still far from being a single political entity. A political Europe has yet to emerge. The crisis of Bosnia offered painful proof of Europe’s continued absence, if proof were still needed. The brutal fact is that Western Europe, and increasingly also Central Europe, remains largely an American protectorate, with its allied states reminiscent of ancient vassals and tributaries. This is no a healthy condition, either for America or for the European nations.
Matters are made worse by a more pervasive decline in Europe’s internal vitality. Both the legitimacy of the existing socioeconomic system and even the surfacing sense of European identity appear to be vulnerable. In a number of European states, one can detect a crisis of confidence and a loss of creative momentum, as well as an inward perspective that is both isolationist and escapist from the larger dilemmas of the world. It is not clear whether most Europeans even want Europe to be a major power and whether they are prepared to do what is needed for it to become one. Even residual European anti-Americanism, currently quite weak, is curiously cynical: the Europeans deplore American “hegemony” but take comfort in being sheltered by it.
The political momentum for Europe’s unification was once driven by three main impulses: the memories of the destructive two world wars, the desire for economic recovery, and the insecurity generated by the Soviet threat. By the mid 90s, however, these impulses had faded.
For France, Europe is the means for regaining France’s past greatness. Even before WW2, serious French thinkers on international affairs already worried about the progressive decline of Europe’s centrality in world affairs. During the several decades of the Cold War, that worry turned into resentment over the “Anglo-Saxon” domination of the West, not to speak of contempt for the related “Americanization” of Western culture. The creation of a genuine Europe — in Charles De Gaulle’s words, “from the Atlantic to the Urals” — was to remedy that deplorable state of affairs. And such a Europe, since it would be led by Paris, would simultaneously regain for France the grandeur that the French still feel remains the nation’s special destiny.
For Germany, a commitment to Europe is the basis for national redemption, while an intimate connection to America is central to its security. Accordingly, a Europe more assertively independent of America is not a viable option. For Germany, redemption + security = Europe + America. That formula defines Germany’s posture and policy, making Germany simultaneously Europe’s truly good citizen and America’s strongest European supporter.
Germany sees its fervent commitment to Europe a historical cleansing, a restoration of its moral and political credentials. By redeeming itself through Europe, Germany is restoring its won greatness while gaining a mission that would not automatically mobilize European resentments and fears against Germany. If Germans seek the German national interests, that runs the risk of alienating other Europeans; if Germans promote Europe’s common interest, that garners European support and respect.
There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite’s preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power. When Prime Minister Alain Juppe, echoing his predecessors, declared to the National Assembly in May 1995 that “France can and must assert its vocation as a world power,” the gathering broke out into spontaneous applause. The French insistence on the development of its own nuclear deterrent was motivated largely by the view that France would thereby enhance its own freedom of action and at the same time gain the capacity to influence American life-and-death decisions regarding the security of the Western Alliance as a whole. It was not vis-a-vis the Soviet Union that France sought to upgrade its status, for the French nuclear deterrent had, at the very best, only a marginal impact on Soviet war-making capabilities. Paris felt instead that its own nuclear weapons would give France a role in the Cold War’s top-level and most dangerous decision-making processes.
The resulting key policy dilemmas for France are essentially twofold: how to preserve the American security commitment to Europe — which France recognizes is still essential — while steadily reducing the American presence; and how to sustain Franco-German partnership as the combined political-economic engine of European unification while precluding German leadership in Europe.
If France were truly a global power, the resolution of these dilemmas in the pursuit of France’s central goal might not be difficult. None of the other European states, save Germany, are endowed with the same ambition or driven by the same sense of mission. Even Germany could perhaps be seduced into acceptance of French leadership in a united but independent (of America) Europe, but only if it felt that France was in fact a global power and could thus provide Europe with the security that Germany cannot but American does.
Germany, however, knows the real limits of French power. France is much weaker than Germany economically, while its military establishment (as the Gulf War of 1991 showed) is not very competent. It is good enough to squash internal coups in satellite African states, but it can neither protect Europe nor project significant power far from Europe. France is no more and no less than a middle-rank European power. Accordingly, in order to construct Europe, Germany has been willing to propitiate French pride, but in order to keep Europe truly secure, it has not been willing to follow French leadership blindly. It has continued to insist on a central role in European security for America.
The reality, painful for French self-esteem, emerged more clearly after Germany’s reunification. Until then, the Franco-German reconciliation did have the appearance of French political leadership riding comfortably on German economic dynamism. That perception actually suited both parties. It mitigated the traditional European fears of Germany, and it had the effect of fortifying and gratifying French illusions by generating the impression that the construction of Europe was led by France, backed by an economically dynamic West Germany.
Germany’s conception of Europe’s future thus differed from its principal European allies: the British proclaimed their preference for a larger Europe because they saw in enlargement the means for diluting Europe’s unity; the French feared that enlargement would enhance Germany’s role and hence favored more narrowly based integration. Germany stood for both and thus gained a standing in Central Europe all its own.
Russia’s social condition was, in fact, typical of a middle-rank Third World country.
One cannot overstate the horrors and tribulations that have befallen the Russian people in the course of this century. Hardly a single Russian family has had the opportunity to lead a normal civilized existence.
Most troubling of all was the loss of Ukraine. The appearance of an independent Ukrainian state not only challenged all Russian to rethink the nature of their own political and ethnic identity, but it represented a vital geopolitical setback for the Russian state. The repudiation of more than 300 years of Russian imperial history meant the loss of a potentially rich industrial and agricultural economy and of 52 million people ethnically and religiously sufficiently close to the Russians to make Russia into a truly large and confident imperial state.
The loss of Ukraine was geopolitically pivotal, for it drastically limited Russia’s geostrategic options. Even without the Baltic states and Poland, a Russia that retained control over Ukraine could still seek to be the leader of an assertive Eurasian empire, in which Moscow could dominate the non-Slavs in the South and Southeast of the former Soviet Union. But without Ukraine and its 52 million fellow Slavs, any attempt by Moscow to rebuild the Eurasian empire was likely to leave Russia entangled alone in protracted conflicts with the nationally and religiously aroused non-Slavs, the war with Chechnya perhaps simply being the first example. Moreover, given Russia’s declining birthrate and explosive birthrate among the Central Asians, any new Eurasian entity based purely on Russian power, without Ukraine, would inevitably become less European and more Asiatic with each passing year.
China’s economic power is fundamentally reversing the historical equation between the two countries, with the empty spaces of Siberia almost beckoning for Chinese colonization.
In the past, Russia saw itself as being ahead of Asia, though lagging behind Europe. But since then, Asia has developed much faster… we find ourselves to be not so much between “modern Europe” and “backward Asia” but rather occupying some strange middle space between two “Europes.”
The delusion of a shared global status with America made it difficult for the Moscow political elite to abandon the idea of a privileged geopolitical position for Russia, not only in the area of the former Soviet Union itself but even in regard to the former Central European satellite states.
No other option can offer the benefits that a modern, rich, and democratic Europe linked to American can. Europe and America are not a threat to a Russia that is a nonexpansive national and democratic state. They have no territorial designs on Russia, which China someday might have, nor do they share an insecure and potentially violent frontier, which is certainly the case with Russia’s ethnically and territorially unclear border with the Muslim nations to the south. On the contrary, for Europe as well as for America, a national and democratic Russia is a geopolitically desirable entity, a source of stability in the volatile Eurasian complex.
The Eurasian Balkans are an ethnic mosaic. The frontiers of its states were drawn arbitrarily by Soviet cartographers in the 1920s and 1930s, when the respective Soviet republics were formally established. Their borders were carved out largely on the ethnic principle, but they also reflected the Kremlin’s interest in keeping the southern region of the Russian Empire internally divided and thus more subservient.
Accordingly, Moscow rejected proposals by Central Asian nationalists to melt the various Central Asian peoples into a single political unit — to be called “Turkestan” — preferring instead to create five separate “republics,” each with a distinctive new name and jigsaw borders. Presumably out of a similar calculation, the Kremlin abandoned plans for a single Caucasian federation. Therefore, it is not surprising that, upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, neither the three states of the Caucasus nor the five states of Central Asia were fully prepared for their newly independent status nor for the needed regional cooperation.
The traditional Balkans of Europe involved head-on competition among three imperial rivals: the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire. There were also three indirect participants who were concerned that their European interests would be adversely affected by the victory of a particular protagonist: Germany feared Russian power, France opposed Austria-Hungary, and Great Britain preferred to see a weakening Ottoman Empire in control of the Dardanelles than the emergence of any one of the other major contestants in control of the Balkans. In the course of the 19th century, these powers managed to contain Balkan conflicts without prejudice to anyone’s vital interests, but they failed to do so in 1914, with disastrous consequences for all.
Today’s competition within the Eurasian Balkans also directly involves three neighboring powers: Russia, Turkey, and Iran, though China may eventually become a major protagonist as well. Also involved in the competition, but more remotely, are Ukraine, Pakistan, India and the distant America. Each of the three principal and most directly engaged contestants is driven not only by the prospect of future geopolitical and economic benefits but also by strong historical impulses. Each was at one time or another either the politically or the culturally dominant power in the region. Each views the others with suspicion. Although head-on warfare among them is unlikely, the cumulative impact of their external rivalry could contribute to regional chaos.
For China, America across the Pacific should be a natural ally since America has no designs on the Asian mainland and has historically opposed both Japanese and Russian encroachments on a weaker China. To the Chinese, Japan has been the principal enemy over the last century; Russia, “the hungry land” in Chinese, has long been distrusted; and India, too, now looms as a potential rival. The principle “my neighbor’s neighbor is my ally” thus fits the geopolitical and historical relationship between China and America.
- What is the practical definition and — from America’s point of view — the acceptable scope of China’s potential emergence as the dominant regional power and of its growing aspirations for the status of a global power?
- As Japan seeks to define a global role for itself, how should America manage the regional consequences of the inevitable reduction in the degree of Japan’s acquiescence in its status as an American protectorate?
The East Asian geopolitical scene is currently characterized by metastable power relations. Metastability involves a condition of external rigidity but of relatively little flexibility, in that regard more reminiscent of iron than steel. It is vulnerable to a destructive chain reaction generated by a powerful jarring blow. Today’s Far East is experiencing extraordinary economic dynamism alongside growing political uncertainty. Asian economic growth may in fact even contribute to that uncertainty, because prosperity obscures the region’s political vulnerabilities even as it intensifies national ambitions and expands social expectations.
However, in addition to becoming the world’s center of economic gravity, Asia is also its potential political volcano. Although surpassing Europe in economic development, Asia is singularly deficient in regional political development. It lacks the cooperative multilateral structures that so dominate the European political landscape and that dilute, absorb, and contain Europe’s more traditional territorial, ethnic, and national conflicts. There is nothing comparable in Asia to either the EU or NATO. None of the regional associations — ASEAN, ARF, and APEC — even remotely approximates the web of multilateral and regional cooperative ties that bind Europe together.
On the contrary, Asia is today the seat of the world’s greatest concentration of rising and recently awakened mass nationalism, fueled by sudden access to mass communications, hyperactivated by expanding social expectations generated by growing economic prosperity as well as by widening disparities in social wealth, and made more susceptible to political mobilization by the explosive increase both in population and urbanization. This condition is rendered even more ominous by the scale of Asia’s arms buildup. In 1995, the region became the world’s biggest importer of arms, outstripping Europe and the Middle East.
Throughout the region, the central but unanswered question among strategists has become this: “For how long can peace in the world’s most populated and increasingly most armed region be assured by one hundred thousand American soldiers, and for how much longer in any case are they likely to stay?”
- China, whatever its specific prospects, is a rising and potentially dominant power.
- America’s security role is becoming increasingly dependent on collaboration with Japan.
- Japan is groping for a more defined and autonomous political role.
- Russia’s role has greatly diminished, while the former Russian-dominated Central Asia has become an object of international rivalry.
- The division of Korea is becoming less tenable, making Korea’s future orientation a matter of increasing geostrategic interest to its major neighbors.
From that perspective, China’s fall from greatness is an aberration, a desecration of China’s special quality, and a personal insult to every individual Chinese. It must be erased, and its perpetrators deserve due punishment. These perpetrators, in varying degrees, have primarily been four: Great Britain, Japan, Russia and America — Great Britain, because of the Opium War and its consequent shameful debasement of China; Japan, because of the predatory wars spanning the last century, resulting in terrible (and still unrepented) infliction of suffering on the Chinese people; Russia, because of protracted encroachment on Chinese territories in the North as well as Stalin’s domineering insensitivity toward Chinese self-esteem; and finally, America, because through its Asian presence and support of Japan, it stands in the way of China’s external aspirations.
In the Chinese view, two of these four powers have already been punished, so to speak, by history. Great Britain is no longer an empire, and the lowering of the Union Jack in Hong Kong forever closes that particular painful chapter. Russia remains next door, though much diminished in stature, prestige, and territory. It is America and Japan that pose the most serious problems for China, and it is in the interaction with them that China’s regional and global role will be substantively defined.
Experience teaches that pressures for democratization from below, either from those who have felt themselves politically suppressed (intellectuals and students) or economically exploited (the new urban labor class and the rural poor), generally tend to outpace the willingness of rulers to yield. At some point, the politically and the socially disaffected in China are likely to join forces in demanding more democracy, freedom of expression, and respect for human rights.
A sphere of influence, however, should not be confused with a zone of exclusive political domination, such as the Soviet Union exercised in Eastern Europe. It is socioeconomically more porous and politically less monopolistic. Nonetheless, it entails a geographic space in which its various states, when formulating their own policies, pay special deference to the interests, views, and anticipated reactions of the regionally predominant power. In brief, a Chinese sphere of influence — perhaps a sphere of deference would be a more accurate formulation — can be defined as one in which the very first question asked in the various capitals regarding any given issue is “What is Beijing’s view on this?”
There is a superficial similarity between Japan’s situation in Eurasia’s Far East and Germany’s in Eurasia’s Far West. Both are the principal regional allies of the US. Indeed, American power in Europe and Asia is derived directly from the close alliances with these two countries. Both have respectable military establishments, but neither is independent in this regard: Germany is constrained by its military integration into NATO, while Japan is restricted by its own (though American-designed) constitutional limitations and the US-Japan Security Treaty. Both are trade and financial powerhouses, regionally dominant and also preeminent on the global scale. Both can be classified as quasi-global powers, and both chafe at the continuing denial to them of formal recognition through permanent seats on the UN Security Council.
But the differences in their respective geopolitical conditions are pregnant with potentially significant consequences. Germany’s actual relationship with NATO places the country on a par with its principal European allies, and under the North Atlantic Treaty, Germany has formal reciprocal defense obligations with the US. The US-Japan Security Treaty stipulates American obligations to defend Japan, but it does not provide (even if only formally) for the use of Japanese military in the defense of America. The treaty in effect codifies a protective relationship.
Moreover, Germany, by its proactive membership in the EU and NATO, is no longer seen as a threat by those neighbors who in the past were victims of its aggression but is viewed instead as a desirable economic and political partner. Some even welcome the potential emergence of a German-led Mitteleuropa, with Germany seen as a benign regional power. That is far from the case with Japan’s Asian neighbors, who harbor lingering animosity toward Japan over WW2. A contributing factor to neighborly resentment is the appreciation of the yen, which has not only prompted bitter complaints but has impeded reconciliation with Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and even China, 30 percent of whose large long-term debts to Japan are in yen.
Japan also has no equivalent in Asia to Germany’s France: that is, a genuine and more or less equal regional partner. There is admittedly a strong cultural attraction to China, mingled perhaps with a sense of guilt, but that attraction is politically ambiguous in that neither side trusts the other and neither is prepared to accept the other’s regional leadership. Japan also has no equivalent to Germany’s Poland: that is, a much weaker but geopolitically important neighbor with whom reconciliation and even cooperation is becoming a reality. Perhaps Korea, especially so after eventual reunification, could become that equivalent, but Japanese-Korean relations are only formally good, with the Korean memories of past domination and the Japanese sense of cultural superiority impeding any genuine social reconciliation. Finally, Japan’s relations with Russia have been much cooler than Germany’s. Russia still retains the southern Kuril Islands by force, which it seized just before the end of WW2, thereby freezing the Russo-Japanese relationship. In brief, Japan is politically isolated in its region, whereas Germany is not.
In addition, Germany shares with its neighbors both common democratic principles and Europe’s broader Christian heritage. It also seeks to identify and even sublimate itself within an entity and a cause larger than itself, namely, that of “Europe.” In contrast, there is no comparable “Asia.” Indeed, Japan’s insular past and even its current democratic system tend to separate it from the rest of the regions, in spite of the emergence in recent years of democracy in several Asian countries. Many Asians view Japan not only as nationally selfish but also as overly imitative of the West and reluctant to join them in questioning the West’s views on human rights and on the importance of individualism. Thus, Japan is perceived as not truly Asians by many Asians, even as the West occasionally wonders to what degree Japan has truly become Western.
In effect, though in Asia, Japan is not comfortably Asian. That condition greatly limits its geostrategic options. A genuinely regional option, that of a regionally preponderant Japan that overshadows China — even if no longer based on Japanese domination but rather on benign Japanese-led regional cooperation — does not seem viable for solid historical, political, and cultural reasons. Furthermore, Japan remains dependent on American military protection and international sponsorship. The abrogation or even the gradual emasculation of the US-Japan Security Treaty would render Japan instantly vulnerable to the disruptions that any serious manifestation of regional or global turmoil might produce. The only alternatives then would be either to accept China’s regional predominance or to undertake a massive — and not only costly but also very dangerous — program of military rearmament.
Understandably, many Japanese find their country’s present position — simultaneously a quasi-global power and a security protectorate – to be anomalous. But dramatic and viable alternatives to the existing arrangements are not self-evident. If it can be said that China’s national goals, notwithstanding the inescapable variety of views among the Chinese strategists on specific aspects, are reasonably clear and the regional thrust of China’s geopolitical ambitions relatively predictable, Japan’s geostrategic vision tends to be relatively cloudy and the Japanese public mood much more ambiguous.
In broad terms, three major orientations, and perhaps a minor fourth one, can be identified and labeled as follows: the unabashed “America Firsters,” the global mercantilists, the proactive realists, and the international visionaries. However, in the final analysis, all four share the same rather general goal and partake of the same central concern: to exploit the special relationship with the US in order to gain global recognition for Japan, while avoiding Asian hostility and without prematurely jeopardizing the American security umbrella.
All four viewpoints also agree that a cautious cultivation of China is much to be preferred over any American-led effort toward the direct containment of China. In fact, the notion of an American-led strategy to contain China, or even the idea of an informal balancing coalition confined to the island states of Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, and Indonesia, back by Japan and America, has had no significant appeal for the Japanese foreign policy establishment. In the Japanese perspective, any effort of that sort would not only require an indefinite and major American military presence in both Japan and Korea but — by creating an incendiary geopolitical overlap between Chinese and American-Japanese regional interests — would be likely to become a self-fulfilling prophesy of a collision with China.
By the same token, few favor the opposite: a grand accommodation between Japan and China. The regional consequences of such a classical reversal of alliances would be too unsettling: an American withdrawal from the region as well as the prompt subordination of both Taiwan and Korea to China, leaving Japan at China’s mercy. With Russia geopolitically marginalized and historically despised, there is thus no alternative to the basic consensus that the link with America remains Japan’s central lifeline. Without it, Japan can neither ensure itself a steady supply of oil nor protect itself from a Chinese (and Korean) nuclear bomb. The only real policy issue is how best to manipulate the American connection in order to advance Japanese interests.
For Japan, that fundamental dilemma also contains a historic imperative: since becoming a dominant regional power is not a viable goal and since without a regional base the attainment of truly comprehensive global power is unrealistic, it follows that Japan can best attain the status of a global leader through active involvement in worldwide peacekeeping and economic development. By taking advantage of the American-Japanese alliance to ensure the stability of the Far East — but without letting it evolve into an anti-Chinese coalition — Japan can safely carve out a distinctive and influential global mission as the power that promotes the emergence of genuinely international and more effectively institutionalized cooperation. Japan could thus become a much more powerful and globally influential equivalent of Canada: a state that is respected for the constructive use of its wealth and power but one that is neither feared or resented.
A policy of simple appeasement could encourage a more assertive Chinese posture; but a policy of merely obstructing the emergence of such a China would also be likely to produce a similar outcome. Cautious accommodation on some issues and a precise drawing of the line on others might avoid either extreme.
Accordingly, it is essential to attain and maintain reciprocally the utmost clarity on this issue. Even if for the foreseeable future China is likely to lack the means to effectively coerce Taiwan, Beijing must understand — and be credibly convinced — that American acquiescence in an attempt at the forcible reintegration of Taiwan, sought by the use of military power, would be so devastating to America’s position in the Far East that America simply could not afford to remain militarily passive if Taiwan were unable to protect itself.
In other words, America would have to intervene not for the sake of a separate Taiwan but for the sake of America’s geopolitical interests in the Asia-Pacific area.
It is important to stress here both the fact of that indispensability and the actuality of the potential for global anarchy. The disruptive consequences of population explosion, poverty-driven migration, radicalizing urbanization, ethnic and religious hostilities, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction would become unmanageable if the existing and underlying nation-state-based framework of even rudimentary geopolitical stability were itself to fragment. Without sustained and directed American involvement, before long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today’s Eurasia but of the world more generally.
The resulting risks to global stability are likely to be further increased by the prospect of a more general degradation of the human condition. Particularly in the poorer countries of the world, the demographic explosion and the simultaneous urbanization of these populations are rapidly generating a congestion not only of the disadvantaged but especially hundreds of millions of unemployed and increasingly restless young, whose level of frustration is growing at an exponential rate. Modern communications intensify their rupture with traditional authority, while making them increasingly conscious — and resentful — of global inequality and thus more susceptible to extremist mobilization. On the one hand, the rising phenomenon of global migrations, already reaching into the tens of millions, may act as a temporary safety valve, but on the other hand, it is also likely to serve as a vehicle for the transcontinental conveyance of ethnic and social conflicts.
However, a comprehensive and integrated geostrategy for Eurasia must also be based on recognition of the limits of America’s effective power and the inevitable attrition over time of its scope. As noted earlier, the very scale and diversity of Eurasia, as well as the potential power of some of its states, limit the depth of American influence and the degree of control over the course of events. This condition places a premium on geostrategic insight and on the deliberately selective deployment of America’s resources on the huge Eurasian chessboard. And since America’s unprecedented power is bound to diminish over time, the priority must be to manage the rise of other regional powers in ways that do not threaten America’s global primacy.
As in chess, American global planners must think several moves ahead, anticipating possible countermoves. A sustainable geostrategy must therefore distinguish between the short-run perspective (the next five or so years), the middle term (up to twenty or so years), and the long run (beyond twenty years). Moreover, these phases must be viewed not as watertight compartments but as part of a continuum. The first phase must gradually and consistently lead into the second — indeed, be deliberately pointed toward it — and the second must then lead subsequently into the third.
In the short run, it is in America’s interest to consolidate and perpetuate the prevailing geopolitical pluralism on the map of Eurasia. That puts a premium on maneuver and manipulation in order to prevent the emergence of a hostile coalition that could eventually seek to challenge America’s primacy, not to mention the remote possibility of any one particular state seeking to do so. By the middle term, the foregoing should gradually yield to a greater emphasis on the emergence of increasingly important but strategically compatible partners who, prompted by American leadership, might help to shape a more cooperative trans-Eurasian security system. Eventually, in the much longer run still, the foregoing could phase into a global core of genuinely shared political responsibility.
In practical terms, the foregoing will require gradual accommodation to a shared leadership in NATO, greater acceptance of France’s concern for a European role not only in Africa but also in the Middle East, and continued support for the eastward expansion of the EU, even as the EU becomes a more politically and economically assertive global player. A Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement, already advocated by a number of prominent Atlantic leaders, could also mitigate the risk of growing economic rivalry between a more united EU and the US. In any case, the EU’s eventual success in burying the centuries-old European nationalist antagonisms, with their globally disruptive effects, would be well worth some gradual diminution in America’s decisive role as Eurasia’s current arbitrator.
Indeed, the failure of the American-led effort to expand NATO could reawaken even more ambitious Russian desires. It is not yet evident — and the historical record is strongly to the contrary — that the Russian political elite shares Europe’s desire for a strong and enduring American political and military presence. Therefore, while the fostering of an increasingly cooperative relationship with Russia is clearly desirable, it is important for America to send a clear message about its global priorities. If a choice has to be made between a larger Euro-Atlantic system and a better relationship with Russia, the former has to rank incomparably higher to America.
In these circumstances, it should become more evident to the Russian political elite that Russia’s first priority is to modernize itself rather than to engage in a futile effort to regain its former status as a global power. Given the enormous size and diversity of the country, a decentralized political system, based on the free market, would be more likely to unleash the creative potential of both the Russian people and the country’s vast natural resources. In turn, such a more decentralized Russia would be less susceptible to imperial mobilization. A loosely confederated Russia — composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Easter Republic — would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with Europe, with the new states of Central Asia, and with the Orient, which would thereby accelerate Russia’s own development. Each of the three confederated entities would also be more able to tap local creative potential, stifled for centuries by Moscow’s heavy bureaucratic hand.
It is through a close political relationship with Japan that America will more safely be able to accommodate China’s regional aspirations, while opposing tis more arbitrary manifestations. Only on that basis can an intricate three-way accommodation — one that involves America’s global power, China’s regional preeminence, and Japan’s international leadership — be contrived. However, that broad geostrategic accommodation could be undermined by an unwise expansion of American-Japanese military cooperation. Japan’s central role should not be that of America’s unsinkable aircraft carrier in the Far East, nor should it be America’s principal Asian military partner or a potential Asian regional power. Misguided efforts to promote any of the foregoing would serve to cut America off from the Asian mainland, to vitiate the prospects for reaching a strategic consensus with China, and thus to frustrate America’s capacity to consolidate stable geopolitical pluralism throughout Eurasia.
20th century man has become less confident than his 19th century ancestor was. He has witnessed the dark powers of history in his own experience. Things which seemed to belong to the past have reappeared: fanatical faith, infallible leaders, slavery and massacres, the uprooting of whole populations, ruthlessness and barbarism.
In brief, the US policy goal must be unapologetically twofold: to perpetuate American’s own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still; and to create a geopolitical framework that can absorb the inevitable shocks and strains of social-political change while evolving into the geopolitical core of shared responsibility for peaceful global management. A prolonged phase of gradually expanding cooperation with key Eurasian partners, both stimulated and arbitrated by America, can also help to foster the preconditions for an eventual upgrading of the existing and increasingly antiquated UN structures. A new distribution of responsibilities and privileges can then take into account the changed realities of global power, so drastically different from those of 1945.