The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership - Softcover

Brzezinski, Zbigniew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465008011 ISBN 13: 9780465008018

Publisher: Basic Books, 2005

Synopsis

American power and a pervasive globalization are the central realities of today's world, and the source of its thorniest dilemmas. Yet while America's unprecedented might should be the source of global security, Americans today feel less secure than ever. Globalization promotes American dominance even as it breeds anti-American resentment. In The Choice, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski addresses the historic choice facing America at this very moment: Will it strive to dominate the world, or lead it? Reminding us that American dominance should not be confused with omnipotence, Brzezinski shows how America's well-being and the world's are entwined, and that America must find a way to be both guarantor of global security and promoter of the global common good."When it comes to what might be called the 'philosophy' of foreign policy-the relationship of U.S. power and policy to broader historical and cultural trends-no statesman of Brzezinski's generation is in his league.... A tour d'horizon of U.S. foreign policy [that] discusses the inevitable contradictions and tensions that enmesh a democratic society that is also a global hegemon, criticizes the Bush administration, and articulates his own vision of the way forward-all in a little over 200 pages. Even those who do not accept Brzezinski's critique of the Bush administration will admire the sagacity of his views; for Democrats attempting to assemble a serious and thoughtful alternative to Bush's foreign policy, The Choice is indispensable."-Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs

About this title

About the Author:

Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, is a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a professor of American foreign policy at the School of Advanced International Studies, the Johns Hopkins University, both located in Washington, D.C. His many books include The Choice and The Grand Chessboard. He lives in Washington, D.C.

From Publishers Weekly:

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

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0465008011
• ISBN 13: 9780465008018
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256