This is an essay on Zbigniew Brzezinski's neoliberal field manual The Choice.
STRATEGIC GEOPOLITICS Zbigniew Brzezinski's book The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership, as the name implies, operates under the liberty of defining the United States as the world's only political superpower. Political international interaction is the sum of economic interaction and military interaction and it is true that collectively, the U.S. has the advantage over all other nation's with extensive capabilities on both fronts. However, with the probable emergence of the European Union (EU) and the "ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations plus China, Japan, and S. Korea) plus three" countries, who have close to a quarter of the world's GDP (8) which is more than the U.S., as economic superpowers and with China building itself into a military powerhouse, it may be arrogant to assume that the U.S. will remain the sole dominant player in geopolitics. Aside from what is perhaps a poor choice of title, The Choice takes a speculative but realistic look at possible scenarios that relate to national and global security. Some of the scenarios that Mr. Brzeznski outlines even involve global strategic warfare, which is often referred to as a "doomsday scenario" or "Armageddon," a territory which many authors of recent defense related publications have avoided altogether, preferring to focus on terrorism and espionage. Mr. Brzeznski also talks about the development of a comprehensive missile defense system, the most elaborate and extravagant of which was the 'Star Wars' space missile defense system proposed by the Reagan administration. In the public domain it is interesting to speculate about such a system and the technological implications, however it is naive to think that a more elaborate system has not already been built. Some estimates say that the U.S. accounts for about 50% of the world's defense spending(1) and military technology is rumored to be 20 years ahead of even the most recent declassified information. One issue that Mr. Brzezinski did not go into detail about is societal survivability in the event of strategic, chemical, or biological attack, which is unfortunate because this information would have practical applications for the reader.
DEFINITIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF OIF AND THE GWOT One of the most prophetic and brilliant assertions made by the book, something the author of this paper heard Mr. Brzezinski say in a forum on C-SPAN, is that the phrase 'Global War on Terrorism' (GWOT) is an inaccurate description of our efforts, in that terrorism is technique or tactic and not an entity (p 27-28). The book advocates for the examining of the national origins of terrorists and terrorist organization and dealing with the complex political realities that that entails. Admittingly, Mr. Brzezinski associates the American definition of "terrorism with a global reach" with the definitions used by leaders of other major powers in their efforts to deal with local insurgents, Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel with the Palestinians, President Vladimir Putin of Russia with the Chechens, and former president Jiang Zemin of China with the Uighurs (p. 32). Mr. Brzezinski is critical of Pres. Bush's public relations activity in support of the GWOT , in Bush's "rhetorically exuberant redefinition of America's strategic doctrine (hp. 35)." Mr. Brzezinski disagrees with the use of the term preemptive in defining Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), stating that a preemptive measure is one used in the event of imminent attack; while prevention would be more accurately used in its stead, being a measure taken to prevent the possibility of a future attack. This distinction is insightful because this is the rhetorical foundation of much of the global community's criticism of OIF, though they were not able to elaborate as concisely and adeptly as Mr. Brzezinski.
THE POLITICS OF ISLAM Mr. Brzezinski discusses the possible future political implications of the current configuration of the Middle East, which is currently in a state of disorder. The Muslim states' populations are developing an increasing abundance in young demographics and The Choice states that, "How successfully these people are absorbed into the economic system and how they are socialized will largely determine their political orientation (p. 50)." This is staggering considering the socio-economic stagnation of the region, due in large part to the repressive nature of Islamic Fundamentalism. Mr. Brzezinski confesses that truly justifiable "deterministic prejudgments" cannot be made about the region and that "such secular causes as corruption and the unequal distribution of wealth are also major sources of the political volatility." This turned at to be prophetic as the Hamas have recently gained political control of Palestine in a democratic election due to the public's dissatisfaction with the former political regime. Much of the world's Muslim population seek the adoption of the Shari'a, Islam's religious rules, as their respective nation's Supreme Law, which would likely present a roadblock for secular economic and political interests in the region. Mr. Brzezinski is brave to publicly question whether or not Islam is incompatible with socio-economic and political progress in the modern world. Islam as an ideology in public life, as is the case in Turkey, can give very different results than Islamic theocracy, the kind that plagues Iran. History has taught Western society a valuable lesson about religious fundamentalism; before Western society was capable of modernization it had to cast off the shackles of Christian orthodoxy. The West must remain cognizant of this lesson in shaping its policies toward the Muslim world.
HEDGING HEGEMONY The Choice essentially says that Islam's political influence is the single greatest threat to American hegemony. Mr. Brzeziski calls this new, dangerous region of the world the Global Balkans, which is a reference to the Southeastern European Balkans and a history dominated by violent turmoil . It is no secret that America has tested its political power in the Balkans, and America is self-aware of this. The National Security Strategy of the United States (NSS) even states in Sec. II, "And when openings arrive, we can encourage change--as we did in central and eastern Europe between 1989 and 1991, or in Belgrade in 2000 (2)." This could be a thinly veiled allusion on Mr. Brzezinski's part to the fact that many interpret America's actions in Iraq the same way, as a test of political power and hegemony. Instead of saying that there is cultural tension between America and the Mid East, which is an oversimplification, Mr. Brzezinski outlines three grievances that specific country's have with the U.S.:
1. "Iranian nationalist resentment over the U.S. backing of the Shah,"
2. "Arab animus stimulated by U.S. support for Israel,"
3. "Pakistani feelings that the United States has been partial to India (p. 59)..."
Most of these grievances are factually justifiable from a Muslim's perspective. However, it should be noted that Muslim states are some of the most oppressive and repressive governments on the planet, which is reprehensible from a Western standpoint. While Americans have an ideological proclivity to nations like India and Israel, because they harbor democratic ideals to a far greater extent when compared with predominantly Islamic states. Mr. Brzezinski also willingly admits that the U.S. has a practical interest in keeping some stability in the region, due to the fact that the U.S. consumes 25% of global oil production and the Global Balkans contain 68% of the world's proven supply. Mr. Brzezinski acknowledges that America can't establish and maintain global security alone and needs the support of Europe more than any other world power. This is why the unilateral invasion of Iraq and 'with us or against us' rhetoric were poor choices because they polarized other nations and those not supporting the U.S. foreign policy will be hard to win back over as allies with the current administration's lack of credibility.
CIRCLE OF FRIENDS In The Choice, Mr. Brzezinski essentially says on the matter of alliances that America should not seek partnerships with nations based solely on their willingness to pursue action in the GWOT. Many of these nations, like India, China, and Russia have had questionable track records on the human rights issues, relative to that of the U.S., that form the ideological basis for American partnership. Mr. Brzezinski instead advocates the re-establishment of ties to the whole of the EU who, though they are struggling with the level of political unification needed to become a military superpower, in conjunction with more historically conventional American foreign policies would provide the U.S. with the moral high ground needed to pursue multilaterally endorsed stability operations in embattled regions. The importance of the Trans-Atlantic partnership has been under-emphasized by the Bush Administration, to the detriment of all parties involved and this has been addresses in the public domain by Pres. Jimmy Carter (7). This could break down alliances and lead to disastrous results should the U.S. every have to unilaterally engage a coalition of nations that have rallied against it, politically or militarily.
GLOBALIZATION FOR DUMMIES To summarize Thomas Friedman, the landscape of the global markets is flattening due to emerging technologies and outsourcing (3). Globalization, a powerhouse for the economy which greatly speeds its progress, also speeds up the dividing of economic classes (4). This is why globalization could have devastating consequences in many Mid-Eastern nations where the economic classes are particularly polarized. However, globalization can have a positive impact on social and cultural aspects of society. People are becoming more similar due to the sharing of information(5). Mr. Brzezinski rejects the Clintonian philosophy that globalization is a force of nature and an inevitability, though he candidly admits that Bill Clinton may have made policies conducive to the perpetuation of globalization. He also rejects the libertine concept that globalization is a panacea, capable of evolving destitute nations into capable marketplaces. Perhaps Mr. Brzezinski's most significant assertion about globalization is that in the conception of many foreign nationals, globalization as a concept is inextricably linked with the 'Americanization' of the world. Cultural deficiencies in a capitalist system, such as those experienced by fundamentalist Islamic nations, will lead to a widespread rejection of Westernization in a given society, this is unavoidable. That being said, however, this does not have to lead to military conflict. Nations, no matter how vast their natural resources, have the right to autonomy in the view of many in the international community, perhaps the most influential of which may be the French. The prevalence of American culture in the world was not solely an American choice alone, other societies, particularly the young demographics, have intentionally embraced American music, dress, and behavior. These young demographics are what the main theme of Mr. Brzezinski's rhetoric about globalization centers around. Basically, the First World is experiencing, and will continue to experience, the effects of an aging population; more or less a seriously diminished workforce. Meanwhile, the Second and Third World countries are going to have a very young, poor, and, by most estimates, highly agitated and disenfranchised population. This configuration could potentially shake the current geopolitical make-up at its foundations, and forever change the World Order.
THE HEGEMONY-DEMOCRACY MATRIX It is doubtful that America's "soft power" (hp 182) was the result of the calculus of some brilliant foreign policy expert or political operator. The pervasiveness of American culture, which is inextricably linked to democratic rhetoric and ideals (ostensibly called democratic though America is clearly a republic), in the world appears to be a natural phenomenon, if for no other reason because the great lengths people in other societies go to in order to find information about and emulate American culture. This is not the result of a massive propaganda campaign; American cultural hegemony is not the invisible hand of American Imperialism, it is there because it is as Mr. Brzezinski calls it "seductive." Mr. Brzezinski deftly strikes the heart of American culture with the single most stunning sentence in the entire book, "The quest for individual wealth is the strongest social impulse in American life and the basis of the American myth (hp 181)." The libertine individualism of American society, which The Choice mistakenly refers to as social egalitarianism ("a social philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people" (6)), collectively with the creativity of American culture is so admired by the masses of the world that they aspire to be associated with America. Though cultural domination does not constitute actually hegemony, more associated with the acquisition and control of resources, consensus is essential for the hegemony of an overtly democratic civilization; The Choice refers to this as strategic cohesion. Logically, hegemony could undermine the quasi-democratic ideals and dialogue that create the forum for American culture. The Choice deals with this in stating, "The imperatives of hegemony, however, could clash fundamentally with the virtues of democracy, pitting national security against civil rights, decisiveness against deliberation. It is timely, therefore, to ask whether global hegemony could endanger American democracy itself."
NOW, WHAT I REALLY THINK ABOUT BRZEZINSKI AND THE HORSE HE RODE IN ON There are a lot of elephants in the room left unacknowledged in The Choice, which I would expect from the former director of the Trilateral Commision. For example, the case of Darfur, Sudan where a radical Islamic government is committing genocide against Black Africans and where the U.S. does little, if anything, to help. Which is a clear demonstration that the U.S. is not committed to fighting Islamic extremism for humanitarian purposes, the de facto justification for the war in Iraq. American hegemony, in other countries, and among certain "extreme left" intelligentsia in this one, is more commonly referred to as American Imperialism. Brzezinski himself even refers to "America's... quasi-imperial responsibility, " in the book (hp. 179). It is true that Brzezinski spent the last chapter of his book castigating the neo-con geopolitical strategies. However, this hypocrisy comes after a two-hundred page field manual for American Imperialism. In The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski said, "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 (9)." In the imperialist propaganda the barbarians are always at the gate, and nothing except a very powerful national government led by an unchecked unitary executive can stop them.
AMERICAN HISTORY X POST FACTO Imperialism is a common theme in American history and first arrived along with the first Europeans when they started raping and killing the Natives, then at length began bringing over slaves from Africa who they raped and killed. America persisted in this way but did not have a particularly self-destructive imperialist agenda until after the Civil War with the emergence of the giant industrial corporations and the "Captains of Industry." That is when the roots for the current "Global Corporate Superpower" and the corresponding agenda, known as neo-liberalism, first took hold of government and began deceptively manipulating public policy. Then after WWII came the Marshall Plan that was billed as an act of benevolence to war-worn Europe for economic assistance which gave $13 billion to Europe, $2 billion of which ended up back in the hands of oil companies and some of the rest of it went to France who just used it to buy weapons from America to kill the Indo-Chinese (10). So, the American taxpayers just gave American corporations one of the most expensive Christmas gifts in history. This is sickeningly similar to what Bush and Cheney are doing in
Iraq right now by giving contracts to corporations in which they have interest such as Halliburton and the Carlyle Group; they may have even used the Marshall Plan as a model for this practice. Degenerates in government get away with this type of behavior by launching a massive propaganda campaign designed to keep Americans deathly afraid. America has a history marked by an overly fearful population, and the better portion of this fear stems from various kinds of xenophobia. The measures taken to ensure security from these irrational xenophobic fears are the actual causes of the international tension that justifies the fear, such as the activities of the Strategic Air Command and the national proliferation of ballistic missiles. This fear has been manipulated by those in power in nearly every stage of American history, it is how they "manufacture" and maintain public consent, a doctrine canonized during the 1920's by liberal intellectuals Ed Bernays and Walter Lippmann among others. But, the neo-liberal corporate agenda has been replaced (hi-jacked) by the neo-conservative global corporate agenda which is far more vast in scope and far more dangerous in magnitude. These trends will continue as long as the populace is content to watch American Idol and eat at McDonalds instead of establish and maintain a consistent and intellectual dialogue about politics and poetics. Many people will be violently opposed to what I have said and call me a traitor, so I will close with the immortal words of Malcolm X Shabazz, "I came here to make a speech to tell you the truth. If the truth is anti-American then blame the truth, don't blame me."
Appendix: Mr. Zbigniew Brzezinski's 3 Tasks for Winning the War on Global Balkanism
1) Resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict
2) Transforming the strategic equation in the oil-producing region from the Persian Gulf to Central Asia
3) Engaging key governments through regional arrangements designed to contain WMD proliferation and the terrorist epidemic
Afterword: There are two elephants in the room of geopolitics that I did not really acknowledge:
1. The arms trade
2. The militarization of space
So, in the interest of demonstrating a comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter, here they go. The U.S. essentially is the main provider of weapons for much of the Global Balkans (http://www.cdi.org/...). We have a history of selling people weapons to try to kill us with (Iraq, Al Qaeda, etc.). The militarization of space is a scenario that makes Dr. Strangelove look like The Sound of Music. Basically, the American government wants to increase the effectiveness and lethality of its strategic weapon arsenal (for those of us who aren't satisfied with total planetary destruction). Both of these issues are so depressing, I have decided to mention them only in this afterword. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, America. Love, peace, & nappiness.
- Nate X