The Diplomat.
The Diplomat's Assistant Editor Zachary Keck sat down with
former U.S. National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to discuss
America's role in world affairs, the shifting geopolitics of the
Asia-Pacific, the feasibility of eliminating nuclear weapons, and rising
powers growing involvement in America's backdoor.
In Strategic Vision you
argue that in today’s world no one power will ever be capable of
dominating Eurasia in the way Harold Mackinder famously envisioned.
Taking that argument at its face, this represents a tectonic shift for
U.S. foreign policy given that, long before
Washington was able to meaningfully affect the balance of power in
Eurasia, its leaders saw preventing a hegemon from dominating it as a
key strategic necessity. If the U.S. no longer has to concern itself
with safeguarding Mackinder’s “world-island” from a potential
hegemon(s), what should be the main objective of U.S. engagement in
Europe and Asia going forward?
The main objective of U.S. engagement in Europe and in Asia should be
to support an equilibrium that discourages any one power from acting in
an excessively assertive fashion towards its neighbors. In the
foreseeable future, it is, in any case, unlikely that any single power
will have the military superiority that would enable it to assert itself
in a hegemonic fashion on as a diverse, complex, and complicated
mega-continent such as Eurasia. Having a close relationship with
Europe, though maintaining a complex partnership with China and an
alliance with Japan, will provide the United States with sufficient foci
for a strategic engagement designed to maintain a relatively stable
even if delicate equilibrium on the so-called “world island.”
