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http://www.otvoroci.com/uploads/3/8/0/5/38053843/strategic_vision__america_and_the_crisis_of_global_power.pdf
"1. What are the implications of the changing distribution of global power from the West to the East, and how is it being affected by the new reality of a politically awakened humanity ?
2. Why is America’s global appeal waning, what are the symptoms of America’s domestic and international decline, and how did America waste the unique global opportunity offered by the peaceful end of the Cold War ? Conversely, what are America’s recuperative strengths and what geopolitical reorientation is necessary to revitalize America’s world role ?
3. What would be the likely geopolitical consequences if America declined from its globally preeminent position, who would be the almost-immediate geopolitical victims of such a decline, what effects would it have on the globalscale problems of the twenty-first century, and could China assume America’s central role in world affairs by 2025 ?
4. Looking beyond 2025, how should a resurgent America define its long-term geopolitical goals, and how could America, with its traditional European allies, seek to engage Turkey and Russia in order to construct an even larger and more vigorous West ? Simultaneously, how could America achieve balance in the East between the need for close cooperation with China and the fact that a constructive American role in Asia should be neither exclusively China-centric nor involve dangerous entanglements in Asian conflicts ?" (p.12-13)
"By 1991, following the disintegration both of the Soviet bloc and then the Soviet Union itself, the United States was left standing as the only global superpower. Not only the twentieth but even the twenty-first century then seemed destined to be the American centuries. Both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush confidently asserted as much. And academic circles echoed them with bold prognoses that the end of the Cold War meant in effect “the end of history” insofar as doctrinal debates regarding the relative superiority of competing social systems was concerned. The victory of liberal democracy was proclaimed not only as decisive but also as final. Given that liberal democracy had flowered first in the West, the implied assumption was that henceforth the West would be the defining standard for the world." (p.15)
"A geopolitically divided and self-centered West could slide into a historical decline reminiscent of the humiliating impotence of nineteenth-century China, while the East might be tempted to replicate the self-destructive power rivalries of twentieth-century Europe." (p.18)
"The crisis of global power is the cumulative consequence of the dynamic shift in the world’s center of gravity from the West to the East, of the accelerated surfacing of the restless phenomenon of global political awakening, and of America’s deficient domestic and international performance since its emergence by 1990 as the world’s only superpower." (p.18)
"The material and strategic cost of prolonged war in the Low Countries and German provinces during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhausted Iberian power, while Dutch prominence began to wane during the late seventeenth century in the face of ascending Britain on the seas and assertive France next door on land. By the time the smoke cleared in the mid-eighteenth century, Great Britain and France stood as the only remaining competitors in the struggle for imperial dominance." (p.26)
-Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision : America and the Crisis of Global Power, Basic Books, 2012, 433 pages.
"1. What are the implications of the changing distribution of global power from the West to the East, and how is it being affected by the new reality of a politically awakened humanity ?
2. Why is America’s global appeal waning, what are the symptoms of America’s domestic and international decline, and how did America waste the unique global opportunity offered by the peaceful end of the Cold War ? Conversely, what are America’s recuperative strengths and what geopolitical reorientation is necessary to revitalize America’s world role ?
3. What would be the likely geopolitical consequences if America declined from its globally preeminent position, who would be the almost-immediate geopolitical victims of such a decline, what effects would it have on the globalscale problems of the twenty-first century, and could China assume America’s central role in world affairs by 2025 ?
4. Looking beyond 2025, how should a resurgent America define its long-term geopolitical goals, and how could America, with its traditional European allies, seek to engage Turkey and Russia in order to construct an even larger and more vigorous West ? Simultaneously, how could America achieve balance in the East between the need for close cooperation with China and the fact that a constructive American role in Asia should be neither exclusively China-centric nor involve dangerous entanglements in Asian conflicts ?" (p.12-13)
"By 1991, following the disintegration both of the Soviet bloc and then the Soviet Union itself, the United States was left standing as the only global superpower. Not only the twentieth but even the twenty-first century then seemed destined to be the American centuries. Both President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush confidently asserted as much. And academic circles echoed them with bold prognoses that the end of the Cold War meant in effect “the end of history” insofar as doctrinal debates regarding the relative superiority of competing social systems was concerned. The victory of liberal democracy was proclaimed not only as decisive but also as final. Given that liberal democracy had flowered first in the West, the implied assumption was that henceforth the West would be the defining standard for the world." (p.15)
"A geopolitically divided and self-centered West could slide into a historical decline reminiscent of the humiliating impotence of nineteenth-century China, while the East might be tempted to replicate the self-destructive power rivalries of twentieth-century Europe." (p.18)
"The crisis of global power is the cumulative consequence of the dynamic shift in the world’s center of gravity from the West to the East, of the accelerated surfacing of the restless phenomenon of global political awakening, and of America’s deficient domestic and international performance since its emergence by 1990 as the world’s only superpower." (p.18)
"The material and strategic cost of prolonged war in the Low Countries and German provinces during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries exhausted Iberian power, while Dutch prominence began to wane during the late seventeenth century in the face of ascending Britain on the seas and assertive France next door on land. By the time the smoke cleared in the mid-eighteenth century, Great Britain and France stood as the only remaining competitors in the struggle for imperial dominance." (p.26)
-Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision : America and the Crisis of Global Power, Basic Books, 2012, 433 pages.
