The Grand Chessboard

September 29, 1997
Not everyone will agree that the U.S. must "perpetuate own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer," but former National Security Adviser Brzezinski offers a meticulously detailed argument for how and why we should. He begins with a quick review of every empire in history and how they compare with America, which he concludes is the first truly global power. He then argues that "Eurasia is... the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played," and moves on to equally brief but comprehensive accounts of political developments there, ranging over entire histories and concluding with how America can best balance power in the region. While it seems overly ambitious to attempt to cover this much ground in a short work, Brzezinski succeeds. He is less convincing, however, when he strays from geopolitics and claims that America is internally threatened by being "fixated on mass entertainment... heavily dominated by hedonistic and socially escapist themes." Those who are uncomfortable with his initial premise will be relieved by his conclusion: America's ultimate destiny is to give up its primacy in exchange for "an enduring framework of global geopolitical cooperation."

September 15, 1997
Whoever controls Eurasia controls the world is a widely held precept, which here Brzezinski breaks into its geopolitical components and then reassembles into a hard-headed plan to maintain America as the paramount power on earth, and to be-queath a stable security system whenever its supremacy wanes. Outright hegemony being passe, America's exercise of its premier position should be "benign and visionary," but premised on the realpolitik principle that no other power emerge to dominate Eurasia. To show the pieces on the board available to a potential challenger of America, Brzezinski packs in maps and charts pertaining to critical regions. A cogent crystallizer of essentials, Brzezinski scans across Eurasia, arguing for NATO expansion and for Russia to link itself to Europe. He proposes that the Caspian Sea is fast becoming a collision point for Turkic, Persian, Slavic, and Chinese influences. Brzezinski's propositions and his fame will generate media interest and not a little criticism from neoisolationists, so libraries can count on requests from their patron-diplomats. ((Reviewed September 15, 1997))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1997, American Library Association.)