the grand chessboard: american primacy and its geostrategic imperativesby zbigniew brzezinski
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The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by ZbigniewBrzezinskiReview by: David C. HendricksonForeign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 1997), pp. 159-160Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20048305 .
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Recent Books
Military Modeling for Decision Making, jrded. edited by wayne p.
hughes, jr. Alexandria: Military
Operations Research Society, 1997,375
pp. $40.00 (paper). Intertwined in virtually all aspects of
military decision-making?from what
weapons governments should buy to how
soldiers should use them?is modeling. This volume, now in a third and substan
tially revised edition, provides the most
useful overview of the subject by some of
the most notable figures in the field. The
editor, a navy captain who has written
authoritatively on a number of subjects
(naval tactics in particular) sets the tone
in a masterly overview that stresses, as do
many of the essays that follow, the limi
tations of these artificial and simplified representations of the warrior's world.
Driven too frequently by underlying assumptions about quantitative factors
(firepower and numbers) rather than
qualitative realities (morale, cohesion,
coordination) military models can
mislead those who put excessive faith in
them?as the wildly pessimistic projections of American casualties in the Gulf War
demonstrated. A work that, if read with
care, would do much to reduce the simple faith placed by civilian and soldier alike in these ubiquitous attempts to distill reality into equations.
The U.S. Military Online: A Directory for Internet Access to the Department of
Defense, by william m. arkin.
Washington: Brassey's, 1997,
240 pp. $29.95. The author is well known (and in some
government quarters, cordially detested)
as an indefatigable researcher in military
affairs, whose cunning and persistence have uncovered many secrets (notably in
the area of nuclear weapons). This book
provides an overview of the American
military presence on the World Wide
Web, including private corporations, institutions of higher education, and
public organizations that have valuable
information on military affairs. Updates
of the work are available?needless to
say?at a web site. Indispensable for
any serious researcher in contemporary national security issues.
The United States DAVID C. HENDRICKSON
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,
by
zbigniew brzezinski. NewYork:
Basic Books, 1997, 24? PP- $24.00. The great merit of this volume lies in its
analysis of the strategic outlook and policy dilemmas of a host of states in Eurasia, a
tour d'horizon lucidly rendered. Brzezinski's
analysis of the triangular relationship
among China, Japan, and America?
together with the policy recommendations
flowing therefrom?is particularly good. But the heart of the book is the ambitious
strategy it prescribes for extending the
Euro-Atlantic community eastward to
Ukraine and lending vigorous support to
the newly independent republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, part and parcel of
what might be termed a strategy of "tough love" for the Russians. That grand design is problematic for two reasons: one is that
To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, fax 203-966-4329.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS - November/December 1997 [*59]
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Recent Books
the excessive widening of Western insti
tutions may well introduce centrifugal forces into them; a second is that
Brzezinski's test of what constitutes
legitimate Russian interests is so stringent that even a democratic Russia is likely to
fail it. Russia, in effect, is to be accorded
the geopolitical equivalent of basketball's
full court press (whereas China, by contrast,
merits the geopolitical equivalent of foot
ball's prevent defense). Given Russia's
weak and friendless condition, a point to
which Brzezinski frequently returns, that
strategy is difficult to square with the author's otherwise sensible emphasis
on
ensuring a balance of power in Eurasia.
U S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse: Humanitarian Relief in Complex Emergencies,
by Andrew
s. natsios. Westport: Center for
Strategic and International Studies,
1997, x9* PP- $55-?o (paper, $15.95). A shrewd and unconventional assessment
of the anatomy, political setting, and oper ational challenges of "complex humanitar
ian emergencies." Natsios, who has
wide experience in relief programs (as
government bureaucrat, military officer, and nongovernmental organization
executive), writes perceptively of both the
need for and limits of these enterprises. He argues that the United States has an
interest in leading the response to such
disasters, insisting (against nonpolitical humanitarians) that public support will
erode, if not collapse, if the case for such
assistance is placed on the ground of pure
altruism. At the same time, however, he
thinks that humanitarian operations must be kept separate and distinct from
the State Department, whose geopolitical
perspective, he fears, will compromise
the humanitarian objectives that ought to be at the forefront of relief operations.
His resolution of this delicate question
may certainly be questioned: humanitarian
operations that have pernicious political
consequences (like the reconstitution of
Hutu forces, abetted by humanitarian
aid, that occurred after the Rwandan
genocide) are more highly suspect than
the author allows.
Degrees of Freedom: Canada and the
United States in a Changing World. EDITED BY KEITH BANTING ET AL.
Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1997, 493 pp. $60.00
(paper, $24.95). This valuable study, with contributions
from ten Canadian scholars, examines
Canadian and American responses to
economic globalization and social frag
mentation, two powerful forces that have
placed contradictory demands on the
modern state. Globalization has forced
upon both countries, as on all states, an
economic agenda that requires them to
adjust their policies in accordance with
the imperative to remain competitive in
the world economy. Social fragmentation, often exacerbated by the dislocations
brought on by globalization, has, by contrast, increased the demands on the
state's resources, bidding the state to be
come more responsive to popular pressures at the same time that globalization requires it to be less so. How much autonomy each
state enjoys in the face of these pressures, and how far their responses have converged or diverged, are the central problems examined here. The conclusion is relatively
hopeful. Contrary to the fears expressed by a wide number of observers?that global ization will drive all countries to a single,
[l6o] FOREIGN AFFAIRS- Volume 76 No. 6
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