Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #153047 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser and the author of The Grand Chessboard, has written a perceptive overview of the disorienting new strategic challenges America faces. Though couched in the sober, nuanced language of policymaking, the book amounts to a point-by-point rebuttal of the Bush doctrine. Brzezinski criticizes what he casts as the administration's rejection of a binding alliance system in favor of ad hoc coalitions, its advocacy of preemptive war, and its refusal to address terrorism's root causes. The underlying problem, says Brzezinski, is turmoil in the "Greater Balkans," the largely Muslim southern rim of central Eurasia. While not ruling out unilateral action by America, Brzezinski believes the ultimate solution to the region's problems involves the slow expansion of the trans-Atlantic zone of prosperity and cooperative institutions. Al-Qaeda's brand of Islamic fundamentalism is in decline, he says, but "Islamist populism," its more pragmatic relation, could cause localized instability. To promote a modernizing impulse in the Muslim world, Brzezinski recommends engagement with Iran, peacemaking in the Middle East and Kashmir, and a regional nuclear nonproliferation pact. In his survey of other security threats, Brzezinski says that as China's economy grows and Japan drifts toward remilitarization, America should help build an equivalent to NATO for the Pacific. Brzezinski warns that globalization's reputation as disruptive, undemocratic and unfair could provoke a virulent anti-American ideology. To avoid becoming a "garrison state," America must establish a "co-optive hegemony," leading a "global community of shared interests." This book makes an exemplary argument for the proposition that idealistic internationalism is "the common-sense dictate of hard-nosed realism."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
This latest of high-concept books on global politics by Jimmy Carter's national security advisor will obtain peak attention in foreign policy and media circles as Brzezinski's pronouncement on American strategy in a war-on-terror world. His perspective extends out about two decades, a generation-long span that is not coincidental to the author's framing theme: how current foreign youths perceptions of the U.S. will redound fundamentally upon this country's security. An underlying "dialectic," Brzezinski argues, will affect that perception: U.S. government international policies tend to uphold stability, while the global influence of American society and culture is profoundly, seductively disruptive. On the proposition that resentment of American culture finds expression in criticism of U.S. policies, Brzezinski proposes approaches to allay anti-American hostility. They flow out of his articulate survey of attitudes in Europe, the "global Balkans" (as he denotes southern Asia), Russia, China, and Japan. For those disconcerted by current events, Brzezinski's proposals represent an alternative to George W. Bush's weltanshauung. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Washington Post
"Deserves careful attention. It is the work of a demonstrably wise man who got it right when it counted."

Customer Reviews

Perceptions and Advice from a Wise Man
After the 9/11 attack, Zbigniew Brzezinski could have helped to steer us toward a more prudent course than the one taken by the Bush Administration, had he still been National Security Advisor. In "The Choice, Global Domination or Global Leadership" he has expressed the misgivings many observers have shared as history took its subsequent regrettable course. He correctly states that the origins of that assault would have been more accurately diagnosed had they been subjected to an intellectually more ambitious analysis. An essential mechanism of dealing with terrorism is to identify its causes, rather than to adopt an apocalyptic or Manichean stance of seeing the crass confrontation between Good and Evil. With clinical honesty he names the various forces that caused us to veer from a more prudent and far-sighted response to the Al Qaida attack.
In advising the adoption of a multilateralist approach in seeking solutions for problems facing the global community, he points to a number of additional tasks thoughtful leaders must tackle. Among them is the unpreventable global availability of weapons of mass destruction in a world rife with angry turbulence. At the same time, our search for security is frustrated by the brutal fact that any such security will always be imperfect. His implication is that self-defensive steps should be supplemented with measures to acquiesce the root causes of such conflicts. He is particularly concerned about the unrest astir in the Middle East and adjacent countries.
Thought provoking are his remarks about global migration, which he feels is inescapable and often necessary for lands with diminishing birthrates, and which needs urgent legitimate organization. Equally perceptive are the professor's judgment regarding our policies of globalization. In a gentle and unobtrusive way, he advises greater emphasis on introducing a humanistic and ethical mission into current policies as opposed to observing merely the special interests of corporate boardrooms.
I wish, its wealth of knowledge and good judgment should have made this book required reading for all those who were, and still are, in charge of forging our future.

Pentrating Insights Pertinent For Today
A tremendous treatise on the state and potential future of global strategic relationships. Brezinski is one I have always enjoyed listening to on Charlie Rose and other forums where the topic is the ever evolving intricacy of global relationships. Absolutely penetrating.

Brezinski says: "The appeal of an ideology comes not only from its vision of the future, but from its compelling myths about the present."(p. 146). For public policy wonks or those fascinated by the intrigue of international relations (that would be me on both counts), I would encourage you to dive into this book. Few have the practical experience and intellectual prowess of Brezinski. Yet, his writing style and use of language is accessible to all. This book covers virtually every major nation-state player, the present state of each, and innumerable scenarios about how the future may unfold --- and the implications for the U.S. role in the same.

Brezinski's insights into globalization were particularly poignant for me: "Globalization is a mixed blessing, and if American policymakers do not deliberately infuse it with politically evident moral content, focusing on the alleviation of the human condition, their uncritical embrace of it could backfire." (pp.160-161). "The United states should treat globalization less as a gospel and more as an opportunity for the betterment of the human condition." (p. 161). After having made these cautionary and hopeful remarks, Brezinski is a realist and fully appreciates that the way globalization is unfolding, it may be a function of guiding a phenomenon not necessarily under the control of any one nation-state, in terms of the actual form it takes --- and the collateral damage Brezinski so distinctly recognizes it has the capacity to create.

A great "background book" for those interested in strategic visioning of the future. I highly recommend it.

His Idea - Baby Steps - to Simplify His Theory of What to Do
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.