Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power

New York, NY: Basic Books, 2012. First edition. First printing [stated]. Hardcover. Very good/very good. Glued binding. Paper over boards. viii, 208 p. Illustrations, black & white, Maps, Figures. Notes. Index In this title, one of the wise men of US foreign policy explains America's vital role in achieving global stability and provides a long-term strategic vision. By 1991, following the disintegration first of the Soviet bloc and then of the Soviet Union itself, the United States was left standing tall as the only global super-power. Not only the 20th but even the 21st century seemed destined to be the American centuries. But that super-optimism did not last long, and soon the stock market bubble and the costly foreign unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency, as well as the financial catastrophe of 2008 jolted America-and much of the West-into a sudden recognition of its systemic vulnerability to unregulated greed. Moreover, the East was demonstrating a surprising capacity for economic growth and technological innovation, prompting new anxiety about the future, and America's status as the leading world power. This book is a response to that challenge. It argues that without an America that is economically vital, socially appealing, responsibly powerful, and capable of sustaining an intelligent foreign engagement, the geopolitical prospects for the West could become increasingly grave. The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more essential that America does not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in cultural hedonism but rather becomes more strategically deliberate and historically enlightened in its global engagement with the new East. This book seeks to answer four major questions: What are the implications of the changing distribution of global power from West to East, and how is it being affected by the new reality of a politically awakened humanity? Why is America's global appeal waning, how ominous 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? What would be the likely geopolitical consequences if America did decline by 2025, and could China then assume America's central role in world affairs? What ought to be a resurgent America's major long-term geopolitical goals in order to shape a more vital and larger West and to engage cooperatively the emerging and dynamic new East? America, Brzezinski argues, must define and pursue a comprehensive and long-term a geopolitical vision, a vision that is responsive to the challenges of the changing historical context. This book seeks to provide the strategic blueprint for that vision. From Wikipedia: "Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski; born March 28, 1928) is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as a counsellor to Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 1968 and held the position of United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. He is regarded as one of President Obama's main advisors on foreign politics. Brzezinski belongs to the realist school of international relations, geopolitically standing in the tradition of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas J. Spykman. Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China); the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II); the brokering of the Camp David Accords; the transition of Iran from an important U.S. client state to an anti-Western Islamic Republic; encouraging dissidents in Eastern Europe and emphasizing human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union; the financing of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in response to the Soviet deployment of forces there and the arming of these rebels to counter the Soviet invasion; and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999. Brzezinski is currently Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns.