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Subject: Understandidng the New World Order: The Eurasian Chessboard by Zbigniew
Brzezinski
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 2001 09:33:36 -0500
From: "Nurev Ind." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Organization: Nurev Independent Research
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The Eurasian Chessboard
by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Chapter 2, The Grand Chessboard
Chart 1 - The Continents: Area
Chart 2 - The Continents: Population
Chart 3 - The Continents: GNP
For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia. For half a
millennium, world affairs were
dominated by Eurasian powers and peoples who fought with one another for
regional domination
and reached out for global power. Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent
in Eurasia -- and
America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how
effectively its
preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.
Obviously, that condition is temporary. But its duration, and what follows
it, is of critical
importance not only to America's well-being but more generally to
international peace. The
sudden emergence of the first and only global power has created a
situation in which an equally
quick end to its supremacy -- either because of America's withdrawal from
the world or because of
the sudden emergence of a successful rival -- would produce massive
international instability. In
effect, it would prompt global anarchy. The Harvard political scientist
Samuel P. Huntington is
right in boldly asserting: A world without U.S. primacy will be a world
with more violence and
disorder and less democracy and economic growth than a world where the
United States
continues to have more influence than any other country in shaping global
affairs. The sustained
international primacy of the United States is central to the welfare and
security of Americans and
to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international
order in the world.(1)
In that context, how America "manages" Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the
globe's largest continent
and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control
two of the world's three
most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the
map also suggests that
control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa's
subordination, rendering the
Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world's
central continent. About
75 percent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of the world's
physical wealth is there as
well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts
for about 60 percent of the
world's GNP and about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources
(see Tables).
Eurasia is also the location of most of the world's politically assertive
and dynamic states. Alter
the United States, the next six largest economies and the next six biggest
spenders on military
weaponry are located in Eurasia. All but one of the world's overt nuclear
powers and all but one of
the covert ones are located in Eurasia. The world's two most populous
aspirants to regional
hegemony and global influence are Eurasian. All of the potential political
and/or economic
challengers to American primacy are Eurasian. Cumulatively, Eurasia's
power vastly overshadows
America's. Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically
one.
Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy
continues to be played.
Although geostrategy -- the strategic management of geopolitical interests
-- may be compared to
chess, the somewhat oval-shaped Eurasian chessboard engages not just two
but several players,
each possessing differing amounts of power. The key players are located on
the chessboard's
west, east, center, and south. Both the western and the eastern
extremities of the chessboard
contain densely populated regions, organized on relatively congested space
into several powerful
states. In the case of Eurasia's small western periphery, American power
is deployed directly on it.
The far eastern mainland is the seat of an increasingly powerful and
independent player,
controlling an enormous population, while the territory of its energetic
rival -- confined on several
nearby islands -- and half of a small far-eastern peninsula provide a
perch for American power.
Stretching between the western and eastern extremities is a sparsely
populated and currently
politically fluid and organizationally fragmented vast middle space that
was formerly occupied by
a powerful rival to US preeminence -- a rival that was once committed to
the goal of pushing
America out of Eurasia. To the south of that large central Eurasian
plateau lies a politically
anarchic but energy-rich region of potentially great importance to both
the western and the
eastern Eurasian states, including in the southernmost area a highly
populated aspirant to
regional hegemony.
This huge, oddly shaped Eurasian chessboard -- extending from Lisbon to
Vladivostok -- provides
the setting for 'the game." If the middle space can be drawn increasingly
into the expanding orbit
of the West (where America preponderates), if the southern region is not
subjected to domination
by a single player, and if the East is not unified in a manner that
prompts the expulsion of America
from its offshore bases, America can then be said to prevail. But if the
middle space rebuffs the
West, becomes an assertive single entity, and either gains control over
the South or forms an
alliance with the major Eastern actor, then America's primacy in Eurasia
shrinks dramatically. The
same would be the case if the two major Eastern players were somehow to
unite. Finally, any
election of America by its Western partners from its perch on the western
periphery would
automatically spell the end of America's participation in the game on the
Eurasian chessboard,
even though that would probably also mean the eventual subordination of
the western extremity
to a revived player occupying the middle space.
The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth
is shallow, limited by
both domestic and external restraints. American hegemony involves the
exercise of decisive
influence but, unlike the empires of the past, not of direct control. The
very scale and diversity of
Eurasia, as well as the power of some of its states, limits the depth of
American influence and the
scope of control over the course of events. That megacontinent is just too
large, too populous,
culturally too varied, and composed of too many historically ambitious and
politically energetic
states to be compliant toward even the most economically successful and
politically preeminent
global power. This condition places a premium on geostrategic skill, on
the careful, selective, and
very deliberate deployment of America's resources on the huge Eurasian
chessboard.
It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic
abroad. This limits the use
of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation.
Never before has a populist
democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is
not a goal that
commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or
challenge to the public's
sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense
spending) and the human
sacrifice (casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the
effort are uncongenial to
democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.
Moreover, most Americans by and large do not derive any special
gratification from their
country's new status as the sole global superpower. Political
"triumphalism' connected with
America's victory in the Cold War has generally tended to receive a cold
reception and has been
the object of some derision on the part of the more liberal-minded
commentators. If anything, two
rather varying views of the implications for America of its historic
success in the competition with
the former Soviet Union have been politically more appealing: on the one
hand, there is the view
that the end of the Cold War justifies a significant reduction in
America's global engagement,
irrespective of the consequences for America's global standing; and on the
other hand, there is
the perspective that the time has come for genuine international
multilateralism, to which America
should even yield some of its sovereignty. Both schools of thought have
commanded the loyalty
of committed constituencies.
Compounding the dilemmas facing the American leadership are the changes in
the character of the
global situation itself: the direct use of power now tends to be more
constrained than was the case
in the past. Nuclear weapons have dramatically reduced the utility of war
as a tool of policy or
even as a threat. The growing economic interdependence among nations is
making the political
exploitation of economic blackmail less compelling. Thus maneuver,
diplomacy, coalition building,
co-optation, and the very deliberate deployment of one's political assets
have become the key
ingredients of the successful exercise of geostrategic power on the
Eurasian chessboard.
Geopolitics and Geostrategy
The exercise of American global primacy must be sensitive to the fact that
political geography
remains a critical consideration in international affairs. Napoleon
reportedly once said that to
know a nation's geography was to know its foreign policy. Our
understanding of the importance
of political geography, however, must adapt to the new realities of power.
For most of the history of international affairs, territorial control was
the focus of political conflict.
Either national self-gratification over the acquisition of larger
territory or the sense of national
deprivation over the loss of "sacred" land has been the cause of most of
the bloody wars fought
since the rise of nationalism. It is no exaggeration to say that the
territorial imperative has been the
main impulse driving the aggressive behavior of nation-states. Empires
were also built through the
careful seizure and retention of vital geographic assets, such as
Gibraltar or the Suez Canal or
Singapore, which served as key choke points or linchpins in a system of
imperial control.
The most extreme manifestation of the linkage between nationalism and
territorial possession was
provided by Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. The effort to build the
"one-thousand-year Reich"
went far beyond the goal of reuniting all German-speaking peoples under
one political roof and
focused also on the desire to control "the granaries" of Ukraine as well
as other Slavic lands,
whose populations were to provide cheap slave labor for the imperial
domain. The Japanese were
similarly fixated on the notion that direct territorial possession of
Manchuria, and later of the
important oil-producing Dutch East Indies, was essential to the
fulfillment of the Japanese quest
for national power and global status. In a similar vein, for centuries the
definition of Russian
national greatness was equated with the acquisition of territory, and even
at the end of the
twentieth century, the Russian insistence on retaining control over such
non-Russian people as
the Chechens, who live around a vital oil pipeline, has been justified by
the claim that such control
is essential to Russia's status as a great power.
Nation-states continue to be the basic units of the world system. Although
the decline in
big-power nationalism and the fading of ideology has reduced the emotional
content of global
politics -- while nuclear weapons have introduced major restraints on the
use of force --
competition based on territory still dominates world affairs, even if its
forms currently tend to be
more civil. In that competition, geographic location is still the point of
departure for the definition
of a nation-state's external priorities, and the size of national
territory also remains one of the major
criteria of status and power.
However, for most nation-states, the issue of territorial possession has
lately been waning in
salience. To the extent that territorial disputes are still important in
shaping the foreign policy of
some states, they are more a matter of resentment over the denial of
self-determination to ethnic
brethren said to be deprived of the right to join the "motherland" or a
grievance over alleged
mistreatment by a neighbor of ethnic minorities than they are a quest for
enhanced national status
through territorial enlargement.
Increasingly, the ruling national elites have come to recognize that
factors other than territory are
more crucial in determining the international status of a state or the
degree of its international
influence. Economic prowess, and its translation into technological
innovation, can also be a key
criterion of power. Japan provides the supreme example. Nonetheless,
geographic location still
tends to determine the immediate priorities of a state -- and the greater
its military, economic, and
political power, the greater the radius, beyond its immediate neighbors,
of that state's vital
geopolitical interests, influence, and involvement.
Until recently, the leading analysts of geopolitics have debated whether
land power was more
significant than sea power and what specific region of Eurasia is vital to
gain control over the
entire continent. One of the most prominent, Harold Mackinder, pioneered
the discussion early in
this century with his successive concepts of the Eurasian "pivot area"
(which was said to include
all of Siberia and much of Central Asia) and, later, of the Central-East
European "heartland" as the
vital springboards for the attainment of continental domination. He
popularized his heartland
concept by the famous dictum:
Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland;
Who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island;
Who rules the World-Island commands the world.
Geopolitics was also invoked by some leading German political geographers
to justify their
country's "Drang nach Osten," notably with Karl Haushofer adapting
Mackinder's concept to
Germany's strategic needs. Its much-vulgarized echo could also be heard in
Adolf Hitler's
emphasis on the German people's need for "Lebensraum." Other European
thinkers of the first half
of this century anticipated an eastward shift in the geopolitical center
of gravity, with the Pacific
region -- and specifically America and Japan -- becoming the likely
inheritors of Europe's fading
domination. To forestall such a shift, the French political geographer
Paul Demangeon, as well as
other French geopoliticians, advocated greater unity among the European
states even before
World War II.
Today, the geopolitical issue is no longer what geographic part of Eurasia
is the point of
departure for continental domination, nor whether land power is more
significant than sea power.
Geopolitics has moved from the regional to the global dimension, with
preponderance over the
entire Eurasian continent serving as the central basis for global primacy.
The United States, a
non-Eurasian power, now enjoys international primacy, with its power
directly deployed on three
peripheries of the Eurasian continent, from which it exercises a powerful
influence on the states
occupying the Eurasian hinterland. But it is on the globe's most important
playing field -- Eurasia
-- that a potential rival to America might at some point arise. Thus,
focusing on the key players
and properly assessing the terrain has to be the point of departure for
the formulation of American
geostrategy for the long-term management of America's Eurasian
geopolitical interests.
Two basic steps are thus required:
*first, to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have
the power to cause a
potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and
to decipher the central
external goals of their respective political elites and the likely
consequences of their seeking to
attain them; and to pinpoint the geopolitically critical Eurasian states
whose location and/or
existence have catalytic effects either on the more active geostrategic
players or on regional
conditions;
* second, to formulate specific US policies to offset, co-opt, and/or
control the above, so as to
preserve and promote vital US interests, and to conceptualize a more
comprehensive geostrategy
that establishes on a global scale the interconnection between the more
specific US policies.
In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the
purposeful management of
geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically
catalytic states, in
keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term preservation
of its unique global
power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly
institutionalized global
cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more
brutal age of ancient
empires, 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.
Geostrategic Players and Geopolitical Pivots
Active geostrategic players are the states that have the capacity and the
national will to exercise
power or influence beyond their borders in order to alter -- to a degree
that affects America's
interests -- the existing geopolitical state of affairs. They have the
potential and/or the
predisposition to be geopolitically volatile. For whatever reason -- the
quest for national grandeur,
ideological fulfillment, religious messianism, or economic aggrandizement
-- some states do seek
to attain regional domination or global standing.
They are driven by deeply rooted and complex motivations, best explained
by Robert Browning's
phrase: "... a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven
for?" They thus take careful
stock of America's power, determine the extent to which their interests
overlap or collide with
America, and shape their own more limited Eurasian objectives, sometimes
in collusion but
sometimes in conflict with America's policies. To the Eurasian states so
driven, the United States
must pay special attention.
Geopolitical pivots are the states whose importance is derived not from
their power and
motivation but rather from their sensitive location and from the
consequences of their potentially
vulnerable condition for the behavior of geostrategic players. Most often,
geopolitical pivots are
determined by their geography, which in some cases gives them a special
role either in defining
access to important areas or in denying resources to a significant player.
In some cases, a
geopolitical pivot may act as a defensive shield for a vital state or even
a region. Sometimes, the
very existence of a geopolitical pivot can be said to have very
significant political and cultural
consequences for a more active neighboring geostrategic player. The
identification of the
post-Cold War key Eurasian geopolitical pivots, and protecting them, is
thus also a crucial aspect
of America's global geostrategy.
It should also be noted at the outset that although all geostrategic
players tend to be important
and powerful countries, not all important and powerful countries are
automatically geostrategic
players. Thus, while the identification of the geostrategic players is
thus relatively easy, the
omission from the list that follows of some obviously important countries
may require more
justification.
In the current global circumstances, at least five key geostrategic
players and five geopolitical
pivots (with two of the latter perhaps also partially qualifying as
players) can be identified on
Eurasia's new political map. France, Germany, Russia, China, and India are
major and active
players, whereas Great Britain, Japan, and Indonesia, while admittedly
very important countries,
do not so qualify. Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea, Turkey, and Iran play
the role of critically
important geopolitical pivots, though both Turkey and Iran are to some
extent -- within their more
limited capabilities -- also geostrategically active. More will be said
about each in subsequent
chapters.
At this stage, suffice it to say that in the western extremity of Eurasia
the key and dynamic
geostrategic players are France and Germany. Both of them are motivated by
a vision of a united
Europe, though they differ on how much and in what fashion such a Europe
should remain linked
to America. But both want to shape something ambitiously new in Europe,
thus altering the status
quo. France in particular has its own geostrategic concept of Europe, one
that differs in some
significant respects from that of the United States, and is inclined to
engage in tactical maneuvers
designed to play off Russia against America and Great Britain against
Germany, even while relying
on the Franco-German alliance to offset its own relative weakness.
Moreover, both France and Germany are powerful enough and assertive enough
to exercise
influence within a wider regional radius. France not only seeks a central
political role in a unifying
Europe but also sees itself as the nucleus of a Mediterranean-North
African cluster of states that
share common concerns. Germany is increasingly conscious of its special
status as Europe's most
important state -- as the area's economic locomotive and the emerging
leader of the European
Union (EU). Germany feels it has a special responsibility for the newly
emancipated Central
Europe, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of earlier notions of a German-led
Mitteleuropa.
Moreover, both France and Germany consider themselves entitled to
represent European interests
in dealings with Russia, and Germany even retains, because of its
geographic location, at least
theoretically, the grand option of a special bilateral accommodation with
Russia.
In contrast, Great Britain is not a geostrategic player. It has fewer
major options, it entertains no
ambitious vision of Europe's future, and its relative decline has also
reduced its capacity to play
the traditional role of the European balancer. Its ambivalence regarding
European unification and
its attachment to a waning special relationship with America have made
Great Britain increasingly
irrelevant insofar as the major choices confronting Europe's future are
concerned. London has
largely dealt itself out of the European game.
Sir Roy Denman, a former British senior official in the European
Commission, recalls in his memoirs
that as early as the 1955 conference in Messina, which previewed the
formation of a European
Union, the official spokesman for Britain flatly asserted to the assembled
would-be architects of
Europe:
The future treaty which you are discussing has no chance of being agreed;
if it was agreed, it
would have no chance of being applied. And if it was applied, it would be
totally unacceptable to
Britain .... au revoir et bonne chance.(2)
More than forty years later, the above dictum remains essentially the
definition of the basic British
attitude toward the construction of a genuinely united Europe. Britain's
reluctance to participate in
the Economic and Monetary Union, targeted for January 1999, reflects the
country's unwillingness
to identify British destiny with that of Europe. The substance of that
attitude was well summarized
in the early 1990s as follows:
*Britain rejects the goal of political unification.
* Britain favors a model of economic integration based on free trade.
*Britain prefers foreign policy, security, and defense coordination
outside the EC [European
Community] framework.
*Britain has rarely maximized its influence with the EC.(3)
Great Britain, to be sure, still remains important to America. It
continues to wield some degree of
global influence through the Commonwealth, but it is neither a restless
major power nor is it
motivated by an ambitious vision. It is America's key supporter, a very
loyal ally, a vital military
base, and a close partner in critically important intelligence activities.
Its friendship needs to be
nourished, but its policies do not call for sustained attention. It is a
retired geostrategic player,
resting on its splendid laurels, largely disengaged from the great
European adventure in which
France and Germany are the principal actors.
The other medium-sized European states, with most being members of NATO
and/or the European
Union, either follow America's lead or quietly line up behind Germany or
France. Their policies do
not have a wider regional impact, and they are not in a position to alter
their basic alignments. At
this stage, they are neither geostrategic players nor geopolitical pivots.
The same is true of the
most important potential Central European member of NATO and the EU,
namely, Poland. Poland
is too weak to be a geostrategic player, and it has only one option: to
become integrated into the
West. Moreover, the disappearance of the old Russian Empire and Poland's
deepening ties with
both the Atlantic alliance and the emerging Europe increasingly give
Poland historically
unprecedented security, while confining its strategic choices.
Russia, it hardly needs saying, remains a major geostrategic player, in
spite of its weakened state
and probably prolonged malaise. Its very presence impacts massively on the
newly independent
states within the vast Eurasian space of the former Soviet Union. It
entertains ambitious
geopolitical objectives, which it increasingly proclaims openly. Once it
has recovered its strength,
it will also impact significantly on its western and eastern neighbors.
Moreover, Russia has still to
make its fundamental geostrategic choice regarding its relationship with
America: is it a friend or
foe? It may well feel that it has major options on the Eurasian continent
in that regard. Much
depends on how its internal politics evolve and especially on whether
Russia becomes a
European democracy or a Eurasian empire again. In any case, it clearly
remains a player, even
though it has lost some of its "pieces," as well as some key spaces on the
Eurasian chessboard.
Similarly, it hardly needs arguing that China is a major player. China is
already a significant
regional power and is likely to entertain wider aspirations, given its
history as a major power and
its view of the Chinese state as the global center. The choices China
makes are already beginning
to affect the geopolitical distribution of power in Asia, while its
economic momentum is bound to
give it both greater physical power and increasing ambitions. The rise of
a "Greater China" will not
leave the Taiwan issue dormant, and that will inevitably impact on the
American position in the
Far East. The dismantling of the Soviet Union has also created on the
western edge of China a
series of states, regarding which the Chinese leaders cannot be
indifferent. Thus, Russia will also
be much affected by China's more active emergence on the world scene.
The eastern periphery of Eurasia poses a paradox. Japan is clearly a major
power in world affairs,
and the American-Japanese alliance has often -- and correctly -- been
defined as America's most
important bilateral relationship. As one of the very top economic powers
in the world, Japan
clearly possesses the potential for the exercise of first-class political
power. Yet it does not act on
this, eschewing any aspirations for regional domination and preferring
instead to operate under
American protection. Like Great Britain in the case of Europe, Japan
prefers not to become
engaged in the politics of the Asian mainland, though at least a partial
reason for this is the
continued hostility of many fellow Asians to any Japanese quest for a
regionally preeminent
political role.
This self-restrained Japanese political profile in turn permits the United
States to play a central
security role in the Far East. Japan is thus not a geostrategic player,
though its obvious potential
for quickly becoming one -- especially if either China or America were
suddenly to alter its current
policies -- imposes on the United States a special obligation to carefully
nurture the
American-Japanese relationship. It is not Japanese foreign policy that
America must watch, but it
is Japan's self-restraint that America must very subtly cultivate. Any
significant reduction in
American-Japanese political ties would impact directly on the region's
stability.
The case for not listing Indonesia as a dynamic geostrategic player is
easier to make. In Southeast
Asia, Indonesia is the most important country, but even in the region
itself, its capacity for
projecting significant influence is limited by the relatively
underdeveloped state of the Indonesian
economy, its continued internal political uncertainties, its dispersed
archipelago, and its
susceptibility to ethnic conflicts that are exacerbated by the central
role exercised in its internal
financial affairs by the Chinese minority. At some point, Indonesia could
become an important
obstacle to Chinese southward aspirations. That eventuality has already
been recognized by
Australia, which once feared Indonesian expansioism but lately has begun
to favor closer
Australian-lndonesian security cooperation. But a period of political
consolidation and continued
economic success is needed before Indonesia can be viewed as the
regionally dominant actor.
In contrast, India is in the process of establishing itself as a regional
power and views itself as
potentially a major global player as well. It also sees itself as a rival
to China. That may be a matter
of overestimating its own long-term capabilities, but India is
unquestionably the most powerful
South Asian state, a regional hegemon of sorts. It is also a semisecret
nuclear power, and it
became one not only in order to intimidate Pakistan but especially to
balance China's possession
of a nuclear arsenal. India has a geostrategic vision of its regional
role, both vis-a-vis its
neighbors and in the Indian Ocean. However, its ambitions at this stage
only peripherally intrude
on America's Eurasian interests, and thus, as a geostrategic player, India
is not -- at least, not to
the same degree as either Russia or China -- a source of geopolitical
concern.
Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a
geopolitical pivot because
its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia.
Without Ukraine, Russia
ceases to be a Eurasian empire. Russia without Ukraine can still strive
for imperial status, but it
would then become a predominantly Asian imperial state, more likely to be
drawn into debilitating
conflicts with aroused Central Asians, who would then be resentful of the
loss of their recent
independence and would be supported by their fellow Islamic states to the
south. China would
also be likely to oppose any restoration of Russian domination over
Central Asia, given its
increasing interest in the newly independent states there. However, if
Moscow regains control
over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as
its access to the Black Sea,
Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful
imperial state, spanning
Europe and Asia. Ukraine's loss of independence would have immediate
consequences for Central
Europe, transforming Poland into the geopolitical pivot on the eastern
frontier of a united Europe.
Despite its limited size and small population, Azerbaijan, with its vast
energy resources, is also
geopolitically critical. It is the cork in the bottle containing the
riches of the Caspian Sea basin and
Central Asia. The independence of the Central Asian states can be rendered
nearly meaningless if
Azerbaijan becomes fully subordinated to Moscow's control. Azerbaijan's
own and very
significant oil resources can also be subjected to Russian control, once
Azerbaijan's
independence has been nullified. An independent Azerbaijan, linked to
Western markets by
pipelines that do not pass through Russian-controlled territory, also
becomes a major avenue of
access from the advanced and energy-consuming economies to the energy rich
Central Asian
republics. Almost as much as in the case of Ukraine, the future of
Azerbaijan and Central Asia is
also crucial in defining what Russia might or might not become.
Turkey and Iran are engaged in establishing some degree of influence in
the Caspian Sea-Central
Asia region, exploiting the retraction of Russian power. For that reason,
they might be considered
as geostrategic players. However, both states confront serious domes- tic
problems, and their
capacity for effecting major regional shifts in the distribution of power
is limited. They are also
rivals and thus tend to negate each other's influence. For example, in
Azerbaijan, where Turkey
has gained an influential role, the Iranian posture (arising out of
concern over possible Azeri
national stirrings within Iran itself) has been more helpful to the
Russians.
Both Turkey and Iran, however, are primarily important geopolitical
pivots. Turkey stabilizes the
Black Sea region, controls access from it to the Mediterranean Sea,
balances Russia in the
Caucasus, still offers an antidote to Muslim fundamentalism, and serves as
the southern anchor
for NATO. A destabilized Turkey would be likely to unleash more violence
in the southern
Balkans, while facilitating the reimposition of Russian control over the
newly independent states
of the Caucasus. Iran, despite the ambiguity of its attitude toward
Azerbaijan, similarly provides
stabilizing support for the new political diversity of Central Asia. It
dominates the eastern
shoreline of the Persian Gulf, while its independence, irrespective of
current Iranian hostility
toward the United States, acts as a barrier to any long-term Russian
threat to American interests in
the Persian Gulf region.
Finally, South Korea is a Far Eastern geopolitical pivot. Its close links
to the United States enable
America to shield Japan and thereby to keep Japan from becoming an
independent and major
military power, without an overbearing American presence within Japan
itself. Any significant
change in South Korea's status, either through unification and/or through
a shift into an
expanding Chinese sphere of influence, would necessarily alter
dramatically America's role in the
Far East, thus altering Japan's as well. In addition, South Korea's
growing economic power also
makes it a more important "space" in its own right, control over which
becomes increasingly
valuable.
The above list of geostrategic players and geopolitical pivots is neither
permanent nor fixed. At
times, some states might have to be added or subtracted. Certainly, in
some respects, the case
could be made that Taiwan, or Thailand, or Pakistan, or perhaps Kazakstan
or Uzbekistan should
also be included in the latter category. However, at this stage, the case
for none of the above
seems compelling. Changes in the status of any of them would represent
major events and involve
some shifts in the distribution of power, but it is doubtful that the
catalytic consequences would
be far- reaching. The only exception might involve the issue of Taiwan, if
one chooses to view it
apart from China. Even then, that issue would only arise if China were to
use major force to
conquer the island, in successful defiance of the United States, thereby
threatening more
generally America's political credibility in the Far East. The probability
of such a course of events
seems low, but that consideration still has to be kept in mind when
framing US policy toward
China.
Critical Choices and Potential Challenges
The identification of the central players and key pivots helps to define
America's grand policy
dilemmas and to anticipate the potential major challenges on the Eurasian
supercontinent. These
can be summarized, before more comprehensive discussion in subsequent
chapters, as involving
five broad issues:
* What kind of Europe should America prefer and hence promote?
*What kind of Russia is in America's interest, and what and how much can
America do about it?
*What are the prospects for the emergence in Central Eurasia of a new
"Balkans," and what
should America do to minimize the resulting risks?
*What role should China be encouraged to assume in the Far East, and what
are the implications
of the foregoing not only for the United States but also for Japan?
*What new Eurasian coalitions are possible, which might be most dangerous
to US interests, and
what needs to be done to preclude them?
The United States has always professed its fidelity to the cause of a
united Europe. Ever since the
days of the Kennedy administration, the standard invocation has been that
of "equal
partnership." Official Washington has consistently proclaimed its desire
to see Europe emerge as
a single entity, powerful enough to share with America both the
responsibilities and the burdens
of global leadership.
That has been the established rhetoric on the subject. But in practice,
the United States has been
less clear and less consistent. Does Washington truly desire a Europe that
is a genuinely equal
partner in world affairs, or does it prefer an unequal alliance? For
example, is the United States
prepared to share leadership with Europe in the Middle East, a region not
only much closer
geographically to Europe than to America but also one in which several
European states have
long-standing interests? The issue of Israel instantly comes to mind.
U.S.-European differences
over Iran and Iraq have also been treated by the United States not as an
issue between equals but
as a matter of insubordination.
Ambiguity regarding the degree of American support for European unity also
extends to the issue
of how European unity is to be defined, especially concerning which
country, if any, should lead a
united Europe. Washington has not discouraged London's divisive posture
regarding Europe's
integration, though Washington has also shown a clear preference for
German -- rather than
French -- leadership in Europe. That Is understandable, given the
traditional thrust of French
policy, but the preference has also had the effect of encouraging the
occasional appearance of a
tactical Franco-British entente in order to thwart Germany, as well as
periodic French flirtation with
Moscow in order to offset the American-German coalition.
The emergence of a truly united Europe -- especially if that should occur
with constructive
American support -- will require significant changes in the structure and
processes of the NATO
alliance, the principal link between America and Europe. NATO provides not
only the main
mechanism for the exercise of US influence regarding European matters but
the basis for the
politically critical American military presence in Western Europe.
However, European unity will
require that structure to adjust to the new reality of an alliance based
on two more or less equal
partners, instead of an alliance that, to use traditional terminology,
involves essentially a hegemon
and its vassals. That issue has so far been largely skirted, despite the
modest steps taken in 1996
to enhance within NATO the role of the Western European Union (WEU), the
military coalition of
the Western European states. A real choice in favor of a united Europe
will thus compel a
far-reaching reordering of NATO, inevitably reducing the American primacy
within the alliance.
In brief, a long-range American geostrategy for Europe will have to
address explicitly the issues of
European unity and real partnership with Europe. An America that truly
desires a united and
hence also a more independent Europe will have to throw its weight behind
those European forces
that are genuinely committed to Europe's political and economic
integration. Such a strategy will
also mean junking the last vestiges of the once-hallowed U.S.-U.K. special
relationship.
A policy for a united Europe will also have to address -- though jointly
with the Europeans -- the
highly sensitive issue of Europe's geographic scope. How far eastward
should the European
Union extend? And should the eastern limits of the EU be synonymous with
the eastern front line
of NATO? The former is more a matter for a European decision, but a
European decision on that
issue will have direct implications for a NATO decision. The latter,
however, engages the United
States, and the US voice in NATO is still decisive. Given the growing
consensus regarding the
desirability of ad- mitting the nations of Central Europe into both the EU
and NATO, the practical
meaning of this question focuses attention on the future status of the
Baltic republics and
perhaps also that of Ukraine.
There is thus an important overlap between the European dilemma discussed
above and the
second one pertaining to Russia. It is easy to respond to the question
regarding Russia's future
by professing a preference for a democratic Russia, closely linked to
Europe. Presumably, a
democratic Russia would be more sympathetic to the values shared by
America and Europe and
hence also more likely to become a junior partner in shaping a more stable
and cooperative
Eurasia. But Russia's ambitions may go beyond the attainment of
recognition and respect as a
democracy. Within the Russian foreign policy establishment (composed
largely of former Soviet
officials), there still thrives a deeply ingrained desire for a special
Eurasian role, one that would
consequently entail the subordination to Moscow of the newly independent
post-Soviet states.
In that context, even friendly western policy is seen by some influential
members of the Russian
policy-making community as designed to deny Russia its rightful claim to a
global status. As two
Russian geopoliticians put it::
[T]he United States and the NATO countries -- while sparing Russia's
self-esteem to the extent
possible, but nevertheless firmly and consistently -- are destroying the
geopolitical foundations
which could, at least in theory, allow Russia to hope to acquire the
status as the number two
power in world politics that belonged to the Soviet Union.
Moreover, America is seen as pursuing a policy in which:
the new organization of the European space that is being engineered by the
West is, in essence,
built on the idea of supporting, in this part of the world, new,
relatively small and weak
national states through their more or less close rapprochement with NATO,
the EC, and so forth.
(4)
The above quotations define well -- even though with some animus -- the
dilemma that the United
States faces. To what extent should Russia be helped economically -- which
inevitably
strengthens Russia politically and militarily -- and to what extent should
the newly independent
states be simultaneously assisted in the defense and consolidation of
their independence? Can
Russia be both powerful and a democracy at the same time? If it becomes
powerful again, will it
not seek to regain its lost imperial domain, and can it then be both an
empire and a democracy?
US policy toward the vital geopolitical pivots of Ukraine and Azerbaijan
cannot skirt that issue,
and America thus faces a difficult dilemma regarding tactical balance and
strategic purpose.
Internal Russian recovery is essential to Russia's democratization and
eventual Europeanization.
But any recovery of its imperial potential would be inimical to both of
these objectives. Moreover,
it is over this issue that differences could develop between America and
some European states,
especially as the EU and NATO expand. Should Russia be considered a
candidate for eventual
membership in either structure? And what then about Ukraine? The costs of
the exclusion of
Russia could be high -- creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in the Russian
mindset -- but the results
of dilution of either the EU or NATO could also be quit e destabilizing.
Another major uncertainty looms in the large and geopolitically fluid
space of Central Eurasia,
maximized by the potential vulnerability of the Turkish-Iranian pivots. In
the area demarcated on
the following map from Crimea in the Black Sea directly eastward along the
new southern frontiers
of Russia, all the way to the Chinese province of Xinjiang, then down to
the Indian Ocean and
thence westward to the Red Sea, then northward to the eastern
Mediterranean Sea and back to
Crimea, live about 400 million people, located in some twenty-five states,
almost all of them
ethnically as well as religiously heterogeneous and practically none of
them politically stable.
Some of these states may be in the process of acquiring nuclear weapons.
This huge region, torn by volatile hatreds and surrounded by competing
powerful neighbors, is
likely to be a major battlefield, both for wars among nation-states and,
more likely, for protracted
ethnic and religious violence. Whether India acts as a restraint or
whether it takes advantage of
some opportunity to impose its will on Pakistan will greatly affect the
regional scope of the likely
conflicts. The internal strains within Turkey and Iran are likely not only
to get worse but to greatly
reduce the stabilizing role these states are capable of playing within
this volcanic region. Such
developments will in turn make it more difficult to assimilate the new
Central Asian states into the
international community, while also adversely affecting the
American-dominated security of the
Persian Gulf region. In any case, both America and the international
community may be faced here
with a challenge that will dwarf the recent crisis in the former
Yugoslavia.
A possible challenge to American primacy from Islamic fundamentalism could
be part of the
problem in this unstable region. By exploiting religious hostility to the
American way of life and
taking advantage of the Arab-lsraeli conflict, Islamic fundamentalism
could undermine several
pro-Western Middle Eastern governments and eventually jeopardize American
regional interests,
especially in the Persian Gulf. However, without political cohesion and in
the absence of a single
genuinely powerful Islamic state, a challenge from Islamic fundamentalism
would lack a
geopolitical core and would thus be more likely to express itself through
diffuse violence.
A geostrategic issue of crucial importance is posed by China's emergence
as a major power. The
most appealing outcome would be to co-opt a democratizing and
flee-marketing China into a larger
Asian regional framework of cooperation. But suppose China does not
democratize but continues
to grow in economic and military power? A "Greater China" may be emerging,
whatever the
desires and calculations of its neighbors, and any effort to prevent that
from happening could
entail an intensifying conflict with China. Such a conflict could strain
American-Japanese relations
-- for it is far from certain that Japan would want to follow America's
lead in containing China --
and could therefore have potentially revolutionary consequences for
Tokyo's definition of Japan's
regional role, perhaps even resulting in the termination of the American
presence in the Far East.
However, accommodation with China will also exact its own price. To accept
China as a regional
power is not a matter of simply endorsing a mere slogan. There will have
to be substance to any
such regional preeminence. To put it very directly, how large a Chinese
sphere of influence, and
where, should America be prepared to accept as part of a policy of
successfully co-opting China
into world affairs? What areas now outside of China's political radius
might have to be conceded
to the realm of the reemerging Celestial Empire?
In that context, the retention of the American presence in South Korea
becomes especially
important. Without it, it is difficult to envisage the American-Japanese
defense arrangement
continuing in its present form, for Japan would have to become militarily
more self-sufficient. But
any movement toward Korean reunification is likely to disturb the basis
for the continued US
military presence in South Korea. A reunified Korea may choose not to
perpetuate American
military protection; that, indeed, could be the price exacted by China for
throwing its decisive
weight behind the reunification of the peninsula. In brief, US management
of its relationship with
China will inevitably have direct consequences for the stability of the
American-Japanese-Korean
triangular security relationship.
Finally, some possible contingencies involving future political alignments
should also be briefly
noted, subject to fuller discussion in pertinent chapters. In the past,
international affairs were
largely dominated by contests among individual states for regional
domination. Henceforth, the
United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions
that seek to push
America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global
power. However, whether
any such coalitions do or do not arise to challenge American primacy will
in fact depend to a very
large degree on how effectively the United States responds to the major
dilemmas identified here.
Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of
China, Russia, and
perhaps Iran, an "antihegemonic" coalition united not by ideology but by
complementary
grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge
once posed by the
Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and
Russia the follower.
Averting this contingency, however remote it may be, will require a
display of US geostrategic
skill on the western, eastern, and southern perimeters of Eurasia
simultaneously.
A geographically more limited but potentially even more consequential
challenge could involve a
Sino-Japanese axis, in the wake of a collapse of the American position in
the Far East and a
revolutionary change in Japan's world outlook. It would combine the power
of two extraordinarily
productive peoples, and it could exploit some form of "Asianism" as a
unifying anti-American
doctrine. However, it does not appear likely that in the foreseeable
future China and Japan will
form an alliance, given their recent historical experience; and a
farsighted American policy in the
Far East should certainly be able to prevent this eventuality from
occurring.
Also quite remote, but not to be entirely excluded, is the possibility of
a grand European
realignment, involving either a German-Russian collusion or a
Franco-Russian entente. There are
obvious historical precedents for both, and either could emerge if
European unification were to
grind to a halt and if relations between Europe and America were to
deteriorate gravely Indeed, in
the latter eventually, one could imagine a European-Russian accommodation
to exclude America
from the continent. At this stage, all of these variants seem improbable.
They would require not
only a massive mishandling by America of its European policy but also a
dramatic reorientation on
the part of the key European states.
Whatever the future, it is reasonable to conclude that American primacy on
the Eurasian
continent will be buffeted by turbulence and perhaps at least by sporadic
violence. America's
primacy is potentially vulnerable to new challenges, either from regional
contenders or novel
constellations. The currently dominant American global system, within
which "the threat of war is
off the table," is likely to be stable only in those parts of the world in
which American primacy,
guided by a long-term geostrategy, rests on compatible and congenial
sociopolitical systems,
linked together by American-dominated multilateral frameworks.
NOTES
(1) Samuel P. Huntington. "Why International Primacy Matters,"
International Security (Spring
1993):83.
(2)Roy Denman, Missed Chances (London: Cassell, 1996).
:(3)In Robert Skidelsky's contribution on "Great Britain and the New
Europe," in From the Atlantic
to the Urals, ed. David P. Calleo and Philip H. Gordon (Arlington, Va.:
1992), p. 145.
(4)A. Bogaturov and V. Kremenyuk (both senior scholars in the Institute of
the United States and
Canada), in 'Current Relations and Prospects for Interaction Between
Russia and the United
States,' Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 28, 1996.
Copyright Council on Foreign Relations 1999. All Rights
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