Ukraine's place on the Brzezinski chessboard. Grand Chessboard American dominance and its geostrategic imperatives Sigmund Brzezinski chessboard

Sergey Petrov
"Grand Chessboard": International Relations; Moscow; 1998
ISBN 5-7133-0967-3
annotation
Numerous reprints of the book by Brzezinski, a staunch and consistent enemy of the USSR, show the great interest of a wide readership in his theoretical predictions in the field of geopolitics.
One of the most famous political scientists in the world analyzes the geopolitical situation of the current decade in the world, and especially on the Eurasian continent, predicting the political map of the future world. Russia, which inherited all the author's hostility from the USSR, is devoted to a special chapter in the book - with the symbolic title "Black Hole".
Grand chess board
American dominance and its geostrategic imperatives

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski
To my students -
to help them
shape the world
tomorrow
Introduction
Superpower politics

From the moment the continents began to interact politically about 500 years ago, Eurasia has become the center of world power. In different ways, at different times, the peoples inhabiting Eurasia, mainly the peoples living in its Western European part, penetrated into other regions of the world and dominated there, while individual Eurasian states achieved a special status and enjoyed the privileges of the leading world powers.
The last decade of the 20th century was marked by a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time in history, a non-Eurasian power has become not only the main arbiter in relations between Eurasian states, but also the most powerful power in the world. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final chord in the rapid rise to the pedestal of the power of the Western Hemisphere - the United States - as the only and indeed the first truly global power.
Eurasia, however, retains its geopolitical significance. Not only its western part - Europe - is still the seat of much of the world's political and economic power, but its eastern part - Asia - has recently become a vital center of economic development and growing political influence. Accordingly, the question of how a globally-interested America should deal with the complex relationship between the Eurasian powers, and especially whether it can prevent the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power on the international stage, remains central to America's ability to exercise its global dominance.
It follows that, in addition to developing various new powers (technology, communications, information systems, and trade and finance), American foreign policy must continue to monitor the geopolitical aspect and use its influence in Eurasia in such a way as to create a stable balance on the continent. where the United States acts as the political arbiter.
Eurasia, therefore, is a "chessboard" on which the struggle for world domination continues, and such a struggle involves geostrategy - the strategic management of geopolitical interests. It is worth noting that as recently as 1940, two contenders for world domination - Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin - made an unequivocal agreement (during secret negotiations in November 1940) that America should be removed from Eurasia. Each of them realized that an injection of American power into Eurasia would put an end to their ambitions for world domination. Each of them shared the view that Eurasia is the center of the world and whoever controls Eurasia controls the whole world. Half a century later, the question was formulated differently: Will American dominance in Eurasia last, and for what purposes can it be used?
The ultimate goal of American policy must be good and lofty: to create a truly cooperative world community in accordance with the long-term trends and fundamental interests of mankind. At the same time, however, it is vital that no rival emerge in the political arena that can dominate Eurasia and therefore challenge America. Therefore, the purpose of the book is to formulate a comprehensive and consistent Eurasian geostrategy.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Washington DC, April 1997

Chapter 1
A new type of hegemony
Hegemony is as old as the world. However, American world dominance is distinguished by its rapid development, its global scope and methods of implementation. Within just one century, under the influence of internal changes, as well as the dynamic development of international events, from a country relatively isolated in the Western Hemisphere, it was transformed into a world power in terms of interests and influence.

Shortcut to world domination

The Spanish-American War of 1898 was America's first war of conquest outside the continent. Thanks to her, the power of America has spread far into the Pacific region, further Hawaii, to the Philippines. At the turn of the new century, American strategic planners were already actively pursuing doctrines of naval dominance in two oceans, and the American navy began to challenge the prevailing notion that Britain "ruled the seas." The American claim to be the sole guardian of the security of the Western Hemisphere, promulgated earlier in the century in the Monroe Doctrine and justified by claims of "destiny destined", was further increased by the construction of the Panama Canal, which facilitated naval dominance in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. ocean.
The foundation of America's growing geopolitical ambitions was provided by the country's rapid industrialization. By the beginning of the First World War, America's economic potential already amounted to about 33% of world GDP, which deprived Britain of the role of a leading industrial power. This remarkable dynamic of economic growth was fueled by a culture that encouraged experimentation and innovation. American political institutions and the free market economy created unprecedented opportunities for ambitious and open-minded inventors, whose pursuit of personal aspirations was not constrained by archaic privileges or rigid social hierarchies. In short, the national culture was uniquely conducive to economic growth, attracting and quickly assimilating the most talented people from abroad, it facilitated the expansion of national power.
The First World War was the first opportunity for a massive transfer of American military forces to Europe. The relatively isolated country quickly moved troops of several hundred thousand people across the Atlantic Ocean: it was a transoceanic military expedition, unprecedented in its size and scale, the first evidence of the appearance on the international scene of a new major actor. Equally important, the war also provided the first major diplomatic moves to apply American principles to European problems. Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points was an injection into European geopolitics of American idealism backed up by American power. (A decade and a half earlier, the United States had played a leading role in resolving the Far East conflict between Russia and Japan, thereby also establishing its growing international status.) The fusion of American idealism and American strength thus made itself felt on the world stage.
However, strictly speaking, World War I was primarily a European war, not a global one. However, its destructive nature marked the beginning of the end of European political, economic and cultural superiority over the rest of the world. During the course of the war, no European power was able to demonstrate decisive superiority, and its outcome was significantly influenced by the entry into the conflict of an increasingly important non-European power - America. Subsequently, Europe will increasingly become an object rather than a subject of global power politics.
However, this brief burst of American world leadership did not result in permanent American involvement in world affairs. On the contrary, America quickly retreated to a flattering combination of isolationism and idealism. Although totalitarianism was gaining strength on the European continent by the mid-1920s and early 1930s, the American power, which by that time had a powerful fleet on two oceans, clearly superior to the British naval forces, still did not take part in international affairs. . Americans preferred to stay away from world politics.
This position was consistent with the American concept of security, based on the view of America as a continental island. The American strategy was aimed at protecting its coasts and, therefore, was narrowly national in nature, with little attention paid to international or global considerations. The main international players were still the European powers, and the role of Japan was growing more and more.
The European era in world politics came to its final conclusion during the Second World War, the first truly global war. The fighting was fought on three continents simultaneously, the Atlantic and the Pacific were also fiercely fought over, and the global nature of the war was symbolically demonstrated when British and Japanese soldiers, who were representatives of a remote Western European island and an equally remote East Asian island, respectively, came together in battle. thousands of miles from their native shores on the Indian-Burmese border. Europe and Asia have become a single battlefield.
Had the war ended in a clear victory for Nazi Germany, a single European power could have become dominant on a global scale. (A Japanese victory in the Pacific would have allowed it to play a leading role in the Far East, but in all likelihood Japan would still have remained a regional hegemon.) Instead, Germany's defeat was completed mainly by two non-European victors, the United States and the Soviet Union. , who became the successors of the unfinished dispute in Europe for world domination.
The next 50 years were marked by the dominance of the bipolar American-Soviet struggle for world domination. In some respects, the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union represented the exercise of a pet theory of geopolitics: it pitted the world's leading naval power, which dominated both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, against the world's largest land power, which occupied most of the Eurasian lands. (moreover, the Sino-Soviet bloc covered a space that clearly resembled the scale of the Mongol Empire). The geopolitical alignment could not be clearer: North America versus Eurasia in a dispute over the whole world. The winner would achieve true domination of the globe. Once victory was finally achieved, no one could prevent it.
Each of the adversaries spread its own ideological appeal throughout the world, imbued with historical optimism, which justified in the eyes of each of the necessary steps and strengthened their conviction in the inevitable victory. Each of the rivals clearly dominated within their own space, in contrast to the imperial European pretenders to world hegemony, none of which ever managed to establish decisive dominance in the territory of Europe itself. And each used his ideology to consolidate power over his vassals and dependent states, which to a certain extent resembled the times of religious wars.
The combination of global geopolitical scope and the professed universality of competing dogmas gave the rivalry an unprecedented power. However, an additional factor, also filled with global undertones, made the rivalry truly unique. The appearance of nuclear weapons meant that the coming war of the classical type between the two main rivals would not only lead to their mutual destruction, but could also have disastrous consequences for a significant part of humanity. The intensity of the conflict was thus tempered by the extreme restraint displayed by both opponents.
In geopolitical terms, the conflict proceeded mainly on the periphery of Eurasia itself. The Sino-Soviet bloc dominated most of Eurasia, but did not control its periphery. North America managed to gain a foothold both on the extreme western and on the extreme eastern coast of the great Eurasian continent. The defense of these continental footholds (expressed on the Western "front" in the blockade of Berlin, and on the Eastern "front" in the Korean War) was thus the first strategic test of what later became known as the Cold War.
At the final stage of the Cold War, a third defensive "front" appeared on the map of Eurasia - the Southern one (see map I). The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan precipitated a double-edged American response: direct US assistance to the national resistance movement in Afghanistan to thwart the plans of the Soviet Army, and a large-scale build-up of the American military presence in the Persian Gulf region as a deterrent to any further southward advance of the Soviet political or military force. The United States has taken up the defense of the Persian Gulf region equally with ensuring its security interests in Western and Eastern Eurasia.
The successful containment by North America of the efforts of the Eurasian bloc aimed at establishing lasting dominance over all of Eurasia, with both sides refraining to the end from direct military confrontation due to fear of nuclear war, led to the fact that the outcome of the rivalry was decided by non-military means. Political vitality, ideological flexibility, economic dynamism and the attractiveness of cultural values have become decisive factors.

Sino-Soviet bloc and three central strategic fronts
Map I
The American-led coalition held its own while the Sino-Soviet bloc fell apart in less than two decades. In part, this state of affairs became possible due to the greater flexibility of the democratic coalition compared to the hierarchical and dogmatic, and at the same time fragile nature of the communist camp. The first bloc had common values but no formal doctrine. The second emphasized a dogmatic orthodox approach, having only one strong center for interpreting his position. America's main allies were considerably weaker than America itself, while the Soviet Union certainly could not treat China as a subjugated state. The outcome of events was also due to the fact that the American side turned out to be much more dynamic economically and technologically, while the Soviet Union gradually entered a stage of stagnation and could not effectively compete both in terms of economic growth and in the military sphere. technologies. Economic decline, in turn, increased ideological demoralization.
In fact, Soviet military power and the fear it inspired in the West for a long time masked a significant asymmetry between rivals. America was much richer, much more advanced in technology, more flexible and advanced in the military field, and more creative and socially attractive. Ideological restrictions also undermined the creative potential of the Soviet Union, making its system more rigid and its economy more wasteful and less competitive in terms of science and technology. In a peaceful competition, the scales should have tipped in America's favor.
Cultural phenomena also had a significant impact on the final result. The American-led coalition generally perceived as positive many attributes of American political and social culture. America's two most important allies on the western and eastern periphery of the Eurasian continent - Germany and Japan - have rebuilt their economies in the context of an almost unbridled admiration for everything American. America was widely seen as the representative of the future, as a society worthy of admiration and worthy of emulation.
Conversely, Russia was culturally scorned by most of its vassals in Central Europe and even more scorned by its main and increasingly intractable eastern ally, China. For the representatives of Central Europe, Russian domination meant isolation from what they considered their home in terms of philosophy and culture: from Western Europe and its Christian religious traditions. Worse, it meant the dominance of a people that the Central Europeans, often unjustly, considered inferior to themselves in cultural development.
The Chinese, for whom the word "Russia" meant "hungry land", showed even more open contempt. While the Chinese initially only quietly challenged Moscow's claim to the universality of the Soviet model, in the decade following the Chinese communist revolution they rose to the level of persistent challenge to Moscow's ideological supremacy and even began to openly display their traditional contempt for their barbarian neighbors to the north.
Finally, within the Soviet Union itself, the non-Russian 50% of its population also rejected Moscow's domination. The gradual political awakening of the non-Russian population meant that Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, and Azeris came to regard Soviet rule as a form of alien imperial domination by a people they did not consider culturally superior to themselves. In Central Asia, national aspirations may have been weaker, but there the moods of the peoples were kindled by a gradually increasing awareness of belonging to the Islamic world, which was reinforced by reports of decolonization taking place everywhere.
Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually exploded from within and shattered, falling victim not so much to outright military defeat as to a process of disintegration accelerated by economic and social problems. His fate corroborated the scholar's apt observation that "empires are fundamentally unstable because subordinate elements almost always prefer a greater degree of autonomy, and counter-elites in such elements almost always take steps to achieve greater autonomy when the opportunity arises. In this sense, empires do not collapse; they rather break apart, usually very slowly, though sometimes unusually quickly.”

First world power

The collapse of a rival left the United States in a unique position. They became the first and only truly world power. Yet America's global dominance is in some ways reminiscent of earlier empires, despite their more limited, regional scope. These empires were based in their power on a hierarchy of vassals, dependent states, protectorates and colonies, and all those who were not part of the empire were usually considered as barbarians. To some extent, this anachronistic terminology is not so inappropriate for a number of states currently under American influence. As in the past, America's exercise of "imperial" power is largely the result of superior organization, the ability to rapidly mobilize vast economic and technological resources for military purposes, the subtle but significant cultural appeal of the American way of life, the dynamism and inherent competitiveness of the American social and political elites.
The former empires also had these qualities. Rome comes to mind first. The Roman Empire was established over the course of two and a half centuries by constant territorial expansion, first to the north, and then to the west and southeast, and also by establishing effective maritime control over the entire coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. Geographically, it reached its maximum development around 211 AD. (see map II). The Roman Empire was a centralized state with a single independent economy. Her imperial power was exercised deliberately and purposefully through a complex political and economic structure. The strategically conceived system of roads and sea routes, which originated in the capital, provided the possibility of rapid regrouping and concentration (in the event of a serious threat to security) of the Roman legions based in various vassal states and subordinate provinces.
During the heyday of the empire, the Roman legions deployed abroad numbered at least 300,000 men, a formidable force made even more deadly by the superiority of the Romans in tactics and armaments, and by the ability of the center to ensure a relatively rapid regrouping of forces. (Surprisingly, in 1996 the much more populous superpower America defended its outer borders with 296,000 professional soldiers abroad.)

The Roman Empire at its heyday
Map II
Rome's imperial power, however, also rested on an important psychological reality. The words "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a Roman citizen") were the highest self-esteem, a source of pride and something that many aspired to. The high status of a Roman citizen, eventually granted to persons of non-Roman origin, was an expression of cultural superiority that justified the sense of a "special mission" of the empire. This reality not only legitimized Roman rule, but also encouraged those who obeyed Rome to assimilate and be incorporated into the imperial structure. Thus, cultural superiority, which was taken for granted by the rulers and which was recognized by the enslaved, strengthened imperial power.
This supreme and largely uncontested imperial authority lasted for about three centuries. With the exception of a challenge thrown at some point by neighboring Carthage and, on the eastern frontiers, by the Parthian Empire, the outside world, largely barbarian, poorly organized, and culturally distinctly inferior to Rome, was for the most part capable of only sporadic attacks. As long as the empire could maintain internal vitality and unity, the outside world could not compete with it.
Three main causes ultimately led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. First, the empire became too large to be ruled from a single center, but its division into Western and Eastern automatically destroyed the monopolistic nature of its power. Second, a long period of imperial arrogance gave rise to a cultural hedonism that gradually undermined the political elite's aspirations for greatness. Third, prolonged inflation also undermined the system's ability to sustain itself without making social sacrifices for which citizens were no longer prepared. Cultural degradation, political division, and financial inflation combined to make Rome vulnerable even to barbarians from areas adjacent to the empire's borders.
By modern standards, Rome was not really a world power, it was a regional power. But given the isolation of the continents at that time, in the absence of immediate or even distant rivals, his regional power was complete. Thus the Roman Empire was a whole world in itself, its superior political organization and culture making it the forerunner of later imperial systems even more grandiose in geographical scope.
However, even with the above, the Roman Empire was not the only one. The Roman and Chinese empires arose almost simultaneously, although they did not know about each other. By 221 B.C. (During the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage) Qin's unification of the existing seven states into the first Chinese empire served as an impetus for the construction of the Great Wall of China in northern China in order to protect the inner kingdom from the outer barbarian world. The later Han Empire, which began to take shape around 140 BC, became even more impressive in both scale and organization. By the advent of the Christian era, no less than 57 million people were under its rule. This huge number, unprecedented in itself, testified to an extremely efficient central administration, which was carried out through a centralized and repressive bureaucracy. The power of the empire extended to the territory of modern Korea, parts of Mongolia and most of what is now coastal China. However, like Rome, the Han Empire was also prone to internal maladies, and its collapse was hastened by the division into three independent states in 220 CE.
The subsequent history of China consisted of cycles of reunification and expansion, followed by decline and division. More than once, China has succeeded in creating imperial systems that were autonomous, isolated, and not threatened from the outside by any organized rivals. The division of the Han state into three parts was ended in 589 AD, resulting in an entity similar to the imperial system. However, the moment of the most successful self-assertion of China as an empire fell on the period of the Manchu rule, especially in the initial period of the Jin Dynasty. By the early 18th century, China had once again become a full-fledged empire, in which the imperial center was surrounded by vassal and dependent states, including today's Korea, Indochina, Thailand, Burma and Nepal. Thus, Chinese influence extended from what is today the Russian Far East through southern Siberia to Lake Baikal and what is now Kazakhstan, then southward towards the Indian Ocean and eastward through Laos and North Vietnam (see Map III).
As with Rome, the empire was a complex system in finance, economy, education, and security. The control of a large area and more than 300 million people living in it was carried out by all these means, with a strong emphasis on centralized political power, supported by a remarkably efficient courier service. The entire empire was divided into four zones, which radiated from Beijing and defined the boundaries of the areas to which the courier could reach within one, two, three or four weeks, respectively. A centralized bureaucracy, professionally trained and competitively selected, provided the backbone of unity.

The Manchurian Empire at its heyday
Map III
Unity was strengthened, legitimized, and maintained—as in the case of Rome—by a strong and deeply ingrained sense of cultural superiority, which was reinforced by Confucianism, a philosophic expedient for the existence of an empire, with its emphasis on harmony, hierarchy, and discipline. China - the Heavenly Empire - was seen as the center of the universe, beyond which only barbarians lived. To be Chinese meant to be cultured, and for that reason, the rest of the world had to treat China with due respect. This particular sense of superiority pervaded the response of the Chinese emperor, even during China's increasing decline in the late 18th century, to King George III of Great Britain, whose envoys tried to bring China into trade relations by offering some British manufactured goods as gifts:
“We, by the will of heaven, the emperor, invite the king of England to take into account our prescription:
The heavenly empire that rules over the space between the four seas... does not value rare and expensive things... in the same way, we do not need the manufactured goods of your country in the least...
Accordingly, we... ordered the messengers in your service to return home safely. You, O King, simply have to act in accordance with our wishes, strengthening your devotion and swearing an oath of eternal obedience.
The decline and fall of several Chinese empires was also primarily due to internal factors. The Mongol and later Eastern "barbarians" triumphed because internal weariness, decay, hedonism, and the loss of creative ability in the economic as well as military fields undermined China's will and subsequently hastened its collapse. Outside powers took advantage of China's illness: Britain during the Opium War of 1839-1842, Japan a century later, which in turn created a deep sense of cultural humiliation that determined China's actions throughout the 20th century, a humiliation all the more so. because of the contradiction between the innate sense of cultural superiority and the humiliating political reality of post-imperial China.
To a large extent, as in the case of Rome, imperial China today could be classified as a regional power. However, in its heyday, China was unparalleled in the world in the sense that no other country would have been able to challenge its imperial status or even resist its further expansion if China had such intention. The Chinese system was autonomous and self-sustaining, based primarily on a common ethnicity with a relatively limited projection of central power onto ethnically alien and geographically peripheral conquered states.
The numerous and dominant ethnic core allowed China to periodically restore its empire. In this respect, China differs from other empires in which small but hegemonic peoples managed to temporarily establish and maintain their dominance over much more numerous ethnically alien peoples. However, if the dominance of such empires with a few ethnic cores was undermined, the restoration of the empire was out of the question.

Approximate outlines of the territories under the control of the Mongol Empire, 1280
Map IV
In order to find a somewhat closer analogy to today's definition of world power, we must turn to the remarkable phenomenon of the Mongol Empire. It arose as a result of a fierce struggle against strong and well-organized opponents. Among those defeated were the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, several Russian principalities, the Caliphate of Baghdad, and, later, even the Chinese Sun dynasty.
Genghis Khan and his successors, having defeated their regional opponents, established centralized control over the territory that modern geopolitical specialists have defined as the "heart of the world" or the fulcrum for world domination. Their Eurasian continental empire stretched from the shores of the China Sea to Anatolia in Asia Minor and into Central Europe (see Map IV). It was only during the heyday of the Stalinist Sino-Soviet bloc of the Mongolian Empire that a worthy rival was found on the Eurasian continent in terms of the scale of centralized control over adjacent territories.
The Roman, Chinese and Mongol empires were the regional antecedents of the later claimants to world domination. In the case of Rome and China, as already noted, the imperial structure was highly developed both politically and economically, while the widespread recognition of the cultural superiority of the center played an important cementing role. In contrast, the Mongol Empire maintained political control, relying heavily on military conquest followed by adaptation (and even assimilation) to local conditions.
The imperial power of Mongolia was mainly based on military dominance. Achieved through the use of brilliant and brutal superior military tactics, combined with remarkable rapid deployment and timely concentration of forces, Mongol dominance did not bring with it an organized economic or financial system, and Mongol power was not based on a sense of cultural superiority. The Mongol rulers were too few in number to represent a self-resurgent ruling class, and in any case, the lack of a well-defined, ingrained sense of cultural or even ethnic superiority robbed the imperial elite of much-needed personal confidence.
In fact, the Mongol rulers proved to be quite receptive to gradual assimilation with the often more culturally advanced peoples they subjugated. So, one of the grandsons of Genghis Khan, who was the emperor of the Chinese part of the great khanate, became an ardent distributor of Confucianism; the other turned into a pious Mohammedan, being the Sultan of Persia; and the third in terms of culture became the Persian ruler of Central Asia.
It was this factor - the assimilation of the rulers with those who were under their rule, due to the lack of a dominant political culture, as well as the unresolved problem of the successor of the great Khan, who founded the empire, which ultimately led to the death of the empire. The Mongolian state became too large to be controlled from a single center, but an attempt to solve this problem by dividing the empire into several autonomous parts led to even faster assimilation and accelerated the collapse of the empire. Having existed for two centuries - from 1206 to 1405, the world's largest land empire disappeared without a trace.
After that, Europe became the focus of world power and the scene of major battles for world power. In fact, for about three centuries, the small northwestern margin of the Eurasian continent for the first time achieved, with the help of an advantage on the seas, real world domination and defended its positions on all continents of the earth. It should be noted that the Western European imperial hegemons were not too numerous, especially compared to those whom they subjugated. And yet, by the beginning of the 20th century, outside the Western Hemisphere (which had also been under the control of Western Europe two centuries earlier and which was mainly inhabited by European emigrants and their descendants), only China, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Ethiopia were free from the domination of Western Europe ( see map V).
Nevertheless, Western European dominance was not tantamount to the achievement of world power by Western Europe. In reality, there was a world domination of European civilization and a fragmentary continental power of Europe. In contrast to the land conquest of the "Eurasian heart" by the Mongols or later by the Russian Empire, European overseas imperialism was achieved through continuous overseas geographical discoveries and the expansion of maritime trade. This process, however, also included a constant struggle between the leading European states not only for overseas dominions, but also for dominance in Europe itself. The geopolitical consequence of this circumstance was that Europe's world domination was not the result of the domination of Europe by any one European power.

European world supremacy, 1900
Map V.
In general, until the middle of the 17th century, Spain was the paramount European power. By the end of the 15th century, it had become a major imperial power with overseas possessions and claims to world domination. Religion was the unifying doctrine and source of imperial missionary zeal. Indeed, it took papal mediation between Spain and Portugal, its maritime rival, to establish the formal division of the world into Spanish and Portuguese colonial spheres in the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) and Saragossa (1529). Nevertheless, faced with England, France and Holland, Spain was unable to defend its dominance either in Western Europe itself or across the ocean.
Spain gradually ceded its advantage to France. Until 1815, France was the dominant European power, although it was constantly held back by European rivals both on the continent and overseas. During the reign of Napoleon, France came close to establishing its real hegemony over Europe. If she succeeded, she would also be able to achieve the status of a dominant world power. However, its defeat in the fight against the European coalition restored the relative balance of power on the continent.
For the next century until the First World War, Great Britain dominated the world at sea, while London became the main financial and commercial center of the world, and the British fleet "ruled the waves." Britain was clearly all-powerful overseas, but like earlier European aspirants to world domination, the British Empire could not dominate Europe alone. Instead, Britain relied on ingenious balance of power diplomacy and ultimately Anglo-French agreement to thwart Russian or German continental dominance.
The overseas British Empire was originally created through a complex combination of geographical discovery, trade and conquest. Much like its predecessors Rome and China, or its French and Spanish rivals, however, it drew its firmness from the concept of cultural superiority. This superiority was not only a matter of arrogance on the part of the imperial ruling class, but also a point of view shared by many non-British subjects. As South Africa's first black president, Nelson Mandela, said, “I was raised in a British school, and at that time Britain was home to all the best in the world. I do not dismiss the influence that Britain and British history and culture have had on us." Cultural superiority, which was successfully defended and easily recognized, played a part in reducing the need to rely on large military formations to maintain the power of the imperial center. By 1914, only a few thousand British military and civil servants controlled some 11 million square miles and almost 400 million non-British people (see Map VI).
In short, Rome secured its dominance largely through its superior military structure and cultural appeal. China relied heavily on an efficient bureaucracy, running an empire built on a common ethnicity and consolidating its control through a highly developed sense of cultural superiority. The Mongol Empire, as the basis of its rule, combined the use of advanced military tactics in the course of conquests and a tendency to assimilate. The British (as well as the Spanish, Dutch, and French) secured the upper hand as their flag followed the development of their trade; their control was also supported by a more advanced military structure and cultural self-assertion. However, none of these empires was truly global. Even Great Britain was not a real world power. She did not control Europe, but only maintained the balance of power in it. A stable Europe was critical to Britain's international dominance, and Europe's self-destruction inevitably marked the end of Britain's dominance.
On the contrary, the scale and influence of the United States of America as a world power is unique today.

Grand chess board

American dominance and its geostrategic imperatives

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski

To my students -

to help them

shape the world

tomorrow

Introduction

Superpower politics

The last decade of the 20th century was marked by a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time in history, a non-Eurasian power has become not only the main arbiter in relations between Eurasian states, but also the most powerful power in the world. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final chord in the rapid rise to the pedestal of the power of the Western Hemisphere - the United States - as the only and indeed the first truly global power.

Eurasia, however, retains its geopolitical significance. Not only its western part - Europe - is still the seat of much of the world's political and economic power, but its eastern part - Asia - has recently become a vital center of economic development and growing political influence. Accordingly, the question of how a globally-interested America should deal with the complex relationship between the Eurasian powers, and especially whether it can prevent the emergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power on the international stage, remains central to America's ability to exercise its global dominance.

It follows that, in addition to developing various new powers (technology, communications, information systems, and trade and finance), American foreign policy must continue to monitor the geopolitical aspect and use its influence in Eurasia in such a way as to create a stable balance on the continent. where the United States acts as the political arbiter.

Eurasia, therefore, is a "chessboard" on which the struggle for world domination continues, and such a struggle involves geostrategy - the strategic management of geopolitical interests. It is worth noting that as recently as 1940, two contenders for world domination - Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin - made an unequivocal agreement (during secret negotiations in November 1940) that America should be removed from Eurasia. Each of them realized that an injection of American power into Eurasia would put an end to their ambitions for world domination. Each of them shared the view that Eurasia is the center of the world and whoever controls Eurasia controls the whole world. Half a century later, the question was formulated differently: Will American dominance in Eurasia last, and for what purposes can it be used?

The ultimate goal of American policy must be good and lofty: to create a truly cooperative world community in accordance with the long-term trends and fundamental interests of mankind. At the same time, however, it is vital that no rival emerge in the political arena that can dominate Eurasia and therefore challenge America. Therefore, the purpose of the book is to formulate a comprehensive and consistent Eurasian geostrategy.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Washington DC, April 1997

A new type of hegemony

Hegemony is as old as the world. However, American world dominance is distinguished by its rapid development, its global scope and methods of implementation. Within just one century, under the influence of internal changes, as well as the dynamic development of international events, from a country relatively isolated in the Western Hemisphere, it was transformed into a world power in terms of interests and influence.

Shortcut to world domination

The foundation of America's growing geopolitical ambitions was provided by the country's rapid industrialization. By the beginning of the First World War, America's economic potential already amounted to about 33% of world GDP, which deprived Britain of the role of a leading industrial power. This remarkable dynamic of economic growth was fueled by a culture that encouraged experimentation and innovation. American political institutions and the free market economy created unprecedented opportunities for ambitious and open-minded inventors, whose pursuit of personal aspirations was not constrained by archaic privileges or rigid social hierarchies. In short, the national culture was uniquely conducive to economic growth, attracting and quickly assimilating the most talented people from abroad, it facilitated the expansion of national power.

The First World War was the first opportunity for a massive transfer of American military forces to Europe. The relatively isolated country quickly moved troops of several hundred thousand people across the Atlantic Ocean: it was a transoceanic military expedition, unprecedented in its size and scale, the first evidence of the appearance on the international scene of a new major actor. Equally important, the war also provided the first major diplomatic moves to apply American principles to European problems. Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points was an injection into European geopolitics of American idealism backed up by American power. (A decade and a half earlier, the United States had played a leading role in resolving the Far East conflict between Russia and Japan, thereby also establishing its growing international status.) The fusion of American idealism and American strength thus made itself felt on the world stage.

However, strictly speaking, World War I was primarily a European war, not a global one. However, its destructive nature marked the beginning of the end of European political, economic and cultural superiority over the rest of the world. During the course of the war, no European power was able to demonstrate decisive superiority, and its outcome was significantly influenced by the entry into the conflict of an increasingly important non-European power - America. Subsequently, Europe will increasingly become an object rather than a subject of global power politics.

However, this brief burst of American world leadership did not result in permanent American involvement in world affairs. On the contrary, America quickly retreated to a flattering combination of isolationism and idealism. Although totalitarianism was gaining strength on the European continent by the mid-1920s and early 1930s, the American power, which by that time had a powerful fleet on two oceans, clearly superior to the British naval forces, still did not take part in international affairs. . Americans preferred to stay away from world politics.

This position was consistent with the American concept of security, based on the view of America as a continental island. The American strategy was aimed at protecting its coasts and, therefore, was narrowly national in nature, with little attention paid to international or global considerations. The main international players were still the European powers, and the role of Japan was growing more and more.

The European era in world politics came to its final conclusion during the Second World War, the first truly global war. The fighting was fought on three continents simultaneously, the Atlantic and the Pacific were also fiercely fought over, and the global nature of the war was symbolically demonstrated when British and Japanese soldiers, who were representatives of a remote Western European island and an equally remote East Asian island, respectively, came together in battle. thousands of miles from their native shores on the Indian-Burmese border. Europe and Asia have become a single battlefield.

Had the war ended in a clear victory for Nazi Germany, a single European power could have become dominant on a global scale. (A Japanese victory in the Pacific would have allowed it to play a leading role in the Far East, but in all likelihood Japan would still have remained a regional hegemon.) Instead, Germany's defeat was completed mainly by two non-European victors, the United States and the Soviet Union. , who became the successors of the unfinished dispute in Europe for world domination.

The next 50 years were marked by the dominance of the bipolar American-Soviet struggle for world domination. In some respects, the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union represented the exercise of a pet theory of geopolitics: it pitted the world's leading naval power, which dominated both the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific, against the world's largest land power, which occupied most of the Eurasian lands. (moreover, the Sino-Soviet bloc covered a space that clearly resembled the scale of the Mongol Empire). The geopolitical alignment could not be clearer: North America versus Eurasia in a dispute over the whole world. The winner would achieve true domination of the globe. Once victory was finally achieved, no one could prevent it.

Each of the adversaries spread its own ideological appeal throughout the world, imbued with historical optimism, which justified in the eyes of each of the necessary steps and strengthened their conviction in the inevitable victory. Each of the rivals clearly dominated within their own space, in contrast to the imperial European pretenders to world hegemony, none of which ever managed to establish decisive dominance in the territory of Europe itself. And each used his ideology to consolidate power over his vassals and dependent states, which to a certain extent resembled the times of religious wars.

The combination of global geopolitical scope and the professed universality of competing dogmas gave the rivalry an unprecedented power. However, an additional factor, also filled with global undertones, made the rivalry truly unique. The appearance of nuclear weapons meant that the coming war of the classical type between the two main rivals would not only lead to their mutual destruction, but could also have disastrous consequences for a significant part of humanity. The intensity of the conflict was thus tempered by the extreme restraint displayed by both opponents.

In geopolitical terms, the conflict proceeded mainly on the periphery of Eurasia itself. The Sino-Soviet bloc dominated most of Eurasia, but did not control its periphery. North America managed to gain a foothold both on the extreme western and on the extreme eastern coast of the great Eurasian continent. The defense of these continental footholds (expressed on the Western "front" in the blockade of Berlin, and on the Eastern "front" in the Korean War) was thus the first strategic test of what later became known as the Cold War.

At the final stage of the Cold War, a third defensive "front" appeared on the map of Eurasia - the Southern one (see map I). The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan precipitated a double-edged American response: direct US assistance to the national resistance movement in Afghanistan to thwart the plans of the Soviet Army, and a large-scale build-up of the American military presence in the Persian Gulf region as a deterrent to any further southward advance of the Soviet political or military force. The United States has taken up the defense of the Persian Gulf region equally with ensuring its security interests in Western and Eastern Eurasia.

The successful containment by North America of the efforts of the Eurasian bloc aimed at establishing lasting dominance over all of Eurasia, with both sides refraining to the end from direct military confrontation due to fear of nuclear war, led to the fact that the outcome of the rivalry was decided by non-military means. Political vitality, ideological flexibility, economic dynamism and the attractiveness of cultural values have become decisive factors.

Sino-Soviet bloc and three central strategic fronts

Map I

The American-led coalition held its own while the Sino-Soviet bloc fell apart in less than two decades. In part, this state of affairs became possible due to the greater flexibility of the democratic coalition compared to the hierarchical and dogmatic, and at the same time fragile nature of the communist camp. The first bloc had common values but no formal doctrine. The second emphasized a dogmatic orthodox approach, having only one strong center for interpreting his position. America's main allies were considerably weaker than America itself, while the Soviet Union certainly could not treat China as a subjugated state. The outcome of events was also due to the fact that the American side turned out to be much more dynamic economically and technologically, while the Soviet Union gradually entered a stage of stagnation and could not effectively compete both in terms of economic growth and in the military sphere. technologies. Economic decline, in turn, increased ideological demoralization.

In fact, Soviet military power and the fear it inspired in the West for a long time masked a significant asymmetry between rivals. America was much richer, much more advanced in technology, more flexible and advanced in the military field, and more creative and socially attractive. Ideological restrictions also undermined the creative potential of the Soviet Union, making its system more rigid and its economy more wasteful and less competitive in terms of science and technology. In a peaceful competition, the scales should have tipped in America's favor.

Cultural phenomena also had a significant impact on the final result. The American-led coalition generally perceived as positive many attributes of American political and social culture. America's two most important allies on the western and eastern periphery of the Eurasian continent - Germany and Japan - have rebuilt their economies in the context of an almost unbridled admiration for everything American. America was widely seen as the representative of the future, as a society worthy of admiration and worthy of emulation.

Conversely, Russia was culturally scorned by most of its vassals in Central Europe and even more scorned by its main and increasingly intractable eastern ally, China. For the representatives of Central Europe, Russian domination meant isolation from what they considered their home in terms of philosophy and culture: from Western Europe and its Christian religious traditions. Worse, it meant the dominance of a people that the Central Europeans, often unjustly, considered inferior to themselves in cultural development.

The Chinese, for whom the word "Russia" meant "hungry land", showed even more open contempt. While the Chinese initially only quietly challenged Moscow's claim to the universality of the Soviet model, in the decade following the Chinese communist revolution they rose to the level of persistent challenge to Moscow's ideological supremacy and even began to openly display their traditional contempt for their barbarian neighbors to the north.

Finally, within the Soviet Union itself, the non-Russian 50% of its population also rejected Moscow's domination. The gradual political awakening of the non-Russian population meant that Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians, and Azeris came to regard Soviet rule as a form of alien imperial domination by a people they did not consider culturally superior to themselves. In Central Asia, national aspirations may have been weaker, but there the moods of the peoples were kindled by a gradually increasing awareness of belonging to the Islamic world, which was reinforced by reports of decolonization taking place everywhere.

Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually exploded from within and shattered, falling victim not so much to outright military defeat as to a process of disintegration accelerated by economic and social problems. His fate corroborated the scholar's apt observation that "empires are fundamentally unstable because subordinate elements almost always prefer a greater degree of autonomy, and counter-elites in such elements almost always take steps to achieve greater autonomy when the opportunity arises. In this sense, empires do not collapse; they rather break apart, usually very slowly, though sometimes unusually quickly.”

First world power

The former empires also had these qualities. Rome comes to mind first. The Roman Empire was established over the course of two and a half centuries by constant territorial expansion, first to the north, and then to the west and southeast, and also by establishing effective maritime control over the entire coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. Geographically, it reached its maximum development around 211 AD. (see map II). The Roman Empire was a centralized state with a single independent economy. Her imperial power was exercised deliberately and purposefully through a complex political and economic structure. The strategically conceived system of roads and sea routes, which originated in the capital, provided the possibility of rapid regrouping and concentration (in the event of a serious threat to security) of the Roman legions based in various vassal states and subordinate provinces.

During the heyday of the empire, the Roman legions deployed abroad numbered at least 300,000 men, a formidable force made even more deadly by the superiority of the Romans in tactics and armaments, and by the ability of the center to ensure a relatively rapid regrouping of forces. (Surprisingly, in 1996 the much more populous superpower America defended its outer borders with 296,000 professional soldiers abroad.)

The Roman Empire at its heyday

Map II

Rome's imperial power, however, also rested on an important psychological reality. The words "Civis Romanus sum" ("I am a Roman citizen") were the highest self-esteem, a source of pride and something that many aspired to. The high status of a Roman citizen, eventually granted to persons of non-Roman origin, was an expression of cultural superiority that justified the sense of a "special mission" of the empire. This reality not only legitimized Roman rule, but also encouraged those who obeyed Rome to assimilate and be incorporated into the imperial structure. Thus, cultural superiority, which was taken for granted by the rulers and which was recognized by the enslaved, strengthened imperial power.

This supreme and largely uncontested imperial authority lasted for about three centuries. With the exception of a challenge thrown at some point by neighboring Carthage and, on the eastern frontiers, by the Parthian Empire, the outside world, largely barbarian, poorly organized, and culturally distinctly inferior to Rome, was for the most part capable of only sporadic attacks. As long as the empire could maintain internal vitality and unity, the outside world could not compete with it.

Three main causes ultimately led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. First, the empire became too large to be ruled from a single center, but its division into Western and Eastern automatically destroyed the monopolistic nature of its power. Second, a long period of imperial arrogance gave rise to a cultural hedonism that gradually undermined the political elite's aspirations for greatness. Third, prolonged inflation also undermined the system's ability to sustain itself without making social sacrifices for which citizens were no longer prepared. Cultural degradation, political division, and financial inflation combined to make Rome vulnerable even to barbarians from areas adjacent to the empire's borders.

By modern standards, Rome was not really a world power, it was a regional power. But given the isolation of the continents at that time, in the absence of immediate or even distant rivals, his regional power was complete. Thus the Roman Empire was a whole world in itself, its superior political organization and culture making it the forerunner of later imperial systems even more grandiose in geographical scope.

However, even with the above, the Roman Empire was not the only one. The Roman and Chinese empires arose almost simultaneously, although they did not know about each other. By 221 B.C. (During the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage) Qin's unification of the existing seven states into the first Chinese empire served as an impetus for the construction of the Great Wall of China in northern China in order to protect the inner kingdom from the outer barbarian world. The later Han Empire, which began to take shape around 140 BC, became even more impressive in both scale and organization. By the advent of the Christian era, no less than 57 million people were under its rule. This huge number, unprecedented in itself, testified to an extremely efficient central administration, which was carried out through a centralized and repressive bureaucracy. The power of the empire extended to the territory of modern Korea, parts of Mongolia and most of what is now coastal China. However, like Rome, the Han Empire was also prone to internal maladies, and its collapse was hastened by the division into three independent states in 220 CE.

The subsequent history of China consisted of cycles of reunification and expansion, followed by decline and division. More than once, China has succeeded in creating imperial systems that were autonomous, isolated, and not threatened from the outside by any organized rivals. The division of the Han state into three parts was ended in 589 AD, resulting in an entity similar to the imperial system. However, the moment of the most successful self-assertion of China as an empire fell on the period of the Manchu rule, especially in the initial period of the Jin Dynasty. By the early 18th century, China had once again become a full-fledged empire, in which the imperial center was surrounded by vassal and dependent states, including today's Korea, Indochina, Thailand, Burma and Nepal. Thus, Chinese influence extended from what is today the Russian Far East through southern Siberia to Lake Baikal and what is now Kazakhstan, then southward towards the Indian Ocean and eastward through Laos and North Vietnam (see Map III).

As with Rome, the empire was a complex system in finance, economy, education, and security. The control of a large area and more than 300 million people living in it was carried out by all these means, with a strong emphasis on centralized political power, supported by a remarkably efficient courier service. The entire empire was divided into four zones, which radiated from Beijing and defined the boundaries of the areas to which the courier could reach within one, two, three or four weeks, respectively. A centralized bureaucracy, professionally trained and competitively selected, provided the backbone of unity.

The Manchurian Empire at its heyday

Map III

Unity was strengthened, legitimized, and maintained—as in the case of Rome—by a strong and deeply ingrained sense of cultural superiority, which was reinforced by Confucianism, a philosophic expedient for the existence of an empire, with its emphasis on harmony, hierarchy, and discipline. China - the Heavenly Empire - was seen as the center of the universe, beyond which only barbarians lived. To be Chinese meant to be cultured, and for that reason, the rest of the world had to treat China with due respect. This particular sense of superiority pervaded the response of the Chinese emperor, even during China's increasing decline in the late 18th century, to King George III of Great Britain, whose envoys tried to bring China into trade relations by offering some British manufactured goods as gifts:

“We, by the will of heaven, the emperor, invite the king of England to take into account our prescription:

The heavenly empire that rules over the space between the four seas... does not value rare and expensive things... in the same way, we do not need the manufactured goods of your country in the least...

Accordingly, we... ordered the messengers in your service to return home safely. You, O King, simply have to act in accordance with our wishes, strengthening your devotion and swearing an oath of eternal obedience.

The decline and fall of several Chinese empires was also primarily due to internal factors. The Mongol and later Eastern "barbarians" triumphed because internal weariness, decay, hedonism, and the loss of creative ability in the economic as well as military fields undermined China's will and subsequently hastened its collapse. Outside powers took advantage of China's illness: Britain during the Opium War of 1839-1842, Japan a century later, which in turn created a deep sense of cultural humiliation that determined China's actions throughout the 20th century, a humiliation all the more so. because of the contradiction between the innate sense of cultural superiority and the humiliating political reality of post-imperial China.

To a large extent, as in the case of Rome, imperial China today could be classified as a regional power. However, in its heyday, China was unparalleled in the world in the sense that no other country would have been able to challenge its imperial status or even resist its further expansion if China had such intention. The Chinese system was autonomous and self-sustaining, based primarily on a common ethnicity with a relatively limited projection of central power onto ethnically alien and geographically peripheral conquered states.

The numerous and dominant ethnic core allowed China to periodically restore its empire. In this respect, China differs from other empires in which small but hegemonic peoples managed to temporarily establish and maintain their dominance over much more numerous ethnically alien peoples. However, if the dominance of such empires with a few ethnic cores was undermined, the restoration of the empire was out of the question.

a book by the American political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997), which provides a frank and simplistic view of US Eurasian geopolitics. Tectonic shifts on the political map of the world for the first time in history put forward a non-Eurasian power to the role of world leader, which became the main arbiter in the relations of the states of Eurasia. After the defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union, Eurasia still maintains its geopolitical position. Here, along with Western Europe, a new center of economic development and growing political influence is emerging in East Asia.

On the great Eurasian "chessboard" the struggle for world domination continues. The main figures here, according to Brzezinski, are Russia, Germany, France, China and India. These large states with significant foreign policy ambitions have their own geostrategy and their interests may clash with those of the United States. American power in Eurasia must put an end to the ambitions of other countries for world domination. The geopolitical goal of the United States is to control Eurasia in order to prevent a rival in the political arena that can challenge America. Eurasia, which occupies an axial position in the world and has 80% of the world's energy resources, is America's main geopolitical prize.

But Eurasia is too big and politically not monolithic, it is a chessboard on which several players simultaneously fight for global domination. The leading players are in the western, eastern, central and southern parts of the chessboard. On the western periphery of Eurasia, the main player is the West, led by the United States, in the east - China, in the south - India, representing, respectively, three civilizations. In the middle of Eurasia, or in the figurative expression of Brzezinski - "black hole" lies "a politically anarchic, but rich in energy resources region", potentially of great importance for the West and East. Russia is located here, claiming regional hegemony.

The size of the territory, the huge population and the diversity of cultures of Eurasia limit the depth of American influence, therefore, as in chess, the following combinations are possible. If the West, led by America, includes Russia in the "European home from London to Vladivostok", India does not prevail in the south, and China does not prevail in the east, then America will win in Eurasia. But if Central Eurasia, led by Russia, rebuffs the West, becomes a single geopolitical and geo-economic space, or forms an alliance with China, then the American presence on the continent will be significantly narrowed. In this regard, unification of the joint efforts of China and Japan is undesirable. If Western Europe drives America from its perch in the Old World, then this will automatically mean the revival of the player occupying the middle part (Russia).

The Eurasian geostrategy of the United States includes purposeful control of the supercontinent. Only in this case it is possible to maintain its exclusive global power and prevent the appearance of a rival. In more frank ancient Chinese terminology, it sounds like this. Imperial geostrategy is to prevent collusion between vassals and maintain their dependence and prevent barbarians from uniting. These are, in general terms, the "Napoleonic" plans for the Eurasian geostrategy of the United States as presented by the American political scientist.

http://historic.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000004/st04.shtml - here are the abstracts for the book "Chessboard". For those who are interested, please read

Briefly about Brzezinski: The most famous sociologist, political scientist and geopolitician of Polish origin, professor at Columbia University, adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University (Washington), who was in 1977-1981. Assistant to the President of the United States for National Security.

The Grand Chessboard: America's Supremacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, 1997 is the best-known book written by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The book is a reflection on the geopolitical power of the United States and the strategies by which this power can be realized in the 21st century. Brzezinski focuses most of his attention on the geopolitical strategy of the United States regarding Eurasia. Brzezinski believes that dominance on the Eurasian continent is actually dominance throughout the world, and considers the most important strategic goals of the United States to extend its influence in Central Asia and the post-Soviet space (primarily to Russia, which occupies the largest area of this space).

The book is based on heartland concept- the heart of the earth. Whoever owns the heartland owns the world. An economic model of the world based on the symbolic values of America that will take over the whole world. Brzezinski is a follower of the founder of modern Anglo-Saxon geopolitics Mackinder, that is, he considers politics from the point of view of the confrontation between the civilization of the sea (USA, Great Britain) and the civilization of land.

“America dominates four critical areas of world power: military area it has unparalleled global deployment capabilities; V economics remains the main driving force of world development, even despite the competition in certain areas from Japan and Germany; V technologically it retained absolute leadership in the advanced fields of science and technology; V cultural fields despite some primitiveness, America enjoys an unparalleled attraction, especially among the youth of the world - all this provides the United States with political influence, close to which no other state in the world has. It is the combination of all these four factors that makes America the world's only superpower in the truest sense of the word." Brzezinski

Brzezinski analyzes the geopolitical situation of the current decade in the world and especially on the Eurasian continent. He models the possible future behavior of countries and their alliances and recommends the most appropriate response of the United States of America to them in order to maintain their position as the only world superpower.

The main idea of the book Brzezinski, how the US can use its economic, military and cultural superiority to control the entire world and manage its resources.

Brzezinski reviews Eurasia as a "great chessboard”, on which the US needs to challenge its dominance. The main thing is that no rival should arise on this continent that would threaten America in its plans.

The dominance of the USA is compared with the former empires of a regional scale (the Roman Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Mongol Empire, Western Europe). And it is concluded that the scale and influence of the United States as a world power today is unique. America dominates four critical areas of world power: the military, the economy, advanced technology, and culture. It is the combination of all four factors that makes America a world superpower in the full sense of the word.

Brzezinski's concept of pushing the boundaries of American hegemony is to constantly expand the perimeter of the Monroe Doctrine.

The main components of this doctrine are as follows:

1. Russia is the coreland- Hartland, which MacKinder conceptualized it in the past. Conquering or dismembering the Heartland is the key to US global hegemony. Russia must be divided into three separate states: one with a center in St. Petersburg, the other with a center in Moscow, and Siberia should be made a separate state.

2. Building on Nicholas Spykman, Brzezinski develops the concept of encircling Russia by capturing "outlying lands"- the Eurasian belt of coastal territories and countries or " rimland”, including Yugoslavia, which is one such country.

3. The dynamics of international relations after 1991 is invasion and conquest of the geopolitical space of the former Soviet Union.

4. The conquest and control of Eurasia is the main goal of the United States. Control of Eurasia is the key to American world domination and their New World Order.

The willingness of the United States to take unilateral massive military action against any state that stands in the way of US imperialist expansionism and the self-assumed role of world policeman is the foundation of the coming US world domination. Brzezinski even goes so far in his book that he proposes to add Canada to America as another state.

An independent Europe, Brzezinski warns, is a constant moral and economic threat to the United States. The United States cannot and should not allow the emergence of a united Europe that would act as an independent geopolitical bloc, holding back the expansionist aspirations of the United States. “In the future, no state or coalition of states should consolidate into a geopolitical force that could force the United States out of Eurasia.”

In his book The Grand Chessboard, Zbigniew Brzezinski draws attention to the fact that the ultimate goal of American imperialism is the conquest of Eurasia, which, according to the British geopolitician Halford MacKinder, is the most important geopolitical area in history - the geographical axis of history.

Brzezinski quotes MacKinder's famous geopolitical aphorism: “He who rules Eastern Europe commands the Heartland; whoever rules the "Heartland" commands the World Island; who rules the World Island, that is the ruler of the world.”

Thus, control and dominance of Eurasia is the central geopolitical imperative of the United States. And NATO is his main tool.

The Cold War for Brzezinski was the blockade of the Heartland fortress, in a geopolitical context identical with the Soviet Union. The battle for Eurasia is the essence of the Cold War.

Current page: 1 (total book has 16 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 9 pages]

Grand ChessboardAmerican dominance and its geostrategic imperatives

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski

To my students -

to help them

shape the world

tomorrow

Introduction Politics of a superpower

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Washington DC, April 1997

Chapter 1

A new type of hegemony

Shortcut to world domination

However, strictly speaking, World War I was primarily a European war, not a global one. However, its destructive nature marked the beginning of the end of European political, economic and cultural superiority over the rest of the world. During the course of the war, no European power was able to demonstrate decisive superiority, and its outcome was significantly influenced by the entry into the conflict of a gaining weight of non-European power - America. Subsequently, Europe will increasingly become an object rather than a subject of global power politics.

At the final stage of the Cold War, a third defensive "front" appeared on the map of Eurasia - the Southern one (see Map I). The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan precipitated a double-edged American response: direct US assistance to the national resistance movement in Afghanistan to thwart the plans of the Soviet Army, and a large-scale build-up of the American military presence in the Persian Gulf region as a deterrent to any further southward advance of the Soviet political or military force. The United States has taken up the defense of the Persian Gulf region equally with ensuring its security interests in Western and Eastern Eurasia.

Sino-Soviet bloc and three central strategic fronts

Map I

Cultural phenomena also had a significant impact on the final result. The American-led coalition generally perceived as positive many attributes of American political and social culture. America's two most important allies on the western and eastern periphery of the Eurasian continent, Germany and Japan, have rebuilt their economies in the context of an almost unbridled admiration for all things American. America was widely seen as the representative of the future, as a society worthy of admiration and worthy of emulation.

First world power

The Roman Empire at its heyday

Map II

The Manchurian Empire at its heyday

Map III

Unity was strengthened, legitimized, and maintained—as in the case of Rome—by a strong and deeply rooted sense of cultural superiority, reinforced by Confucianism, a philosophic expedient for the existence of an empire, with its emphasis on harmony, hierarchy, and discipline. China - the Heavenly Empire - was seen as the center of the universe, outside of which only barbarians lived. To be Chinese meant to be cultured, and for that reason, the rest of the world had to treat China with due respect. This particular sense of superiority pervaded the response of the Chinese emperor—even during China's increasing decline in the late eighteenth century—to King George III of Great Britain, whose envoys tried to bring China into trade by offering some British manufactured goods as gifts:

“We, by the will of heaven, the emperor, invite the king of England to take into account our prescription:

Approximate outlines of the territories under the control of the Mongol Empire, 1280

Map IV

In order to find a somewhat closer analogy to today's definition of world power, we must turn to the remarkable phenomenon of the Mongol Empire. It arose as a result of a fierce struggle against strong and well-organized opponents. Among those defeated were the kingdoms of Poland and Hungary, the forces of the Holy Roman Empire, several Russian principalities, the Caliphate of Baghdad, and, later, even the Chinese Sun dynasty.