This is the first half of Brzezinski article. Second half follows soon.
The Prophecy
Zbigniew Brzezinski has been the leader of the Democratic foreign policy department, and is an advisor to President Obama. He published an interesting thesis in 2008. In his The Global Political Awakening, he adumbrated the loss of US leadership and assumed intensified global disagreements on the environment, society and economy. He writes, “For the first time in history, nearly all of humanity become politically active, politically awakened, and politically connected”, “the worldwide political craving for cultural dignities and economic development, suppressed so far by the colonial rule and imperial domination, will rise”, “in the past 500 years, the Atlantic basin was the centre of the world but it will end with the rise of Japan and new China. India and Russia may follow”. The Global Political Awakening (IHT)
Brzezinski has pronounced the phrase “global political awakening” already in his 2003 book ‘The Choice’. Now that he is Obama’s policy advisor, the worldwide political awakening has noticeably intensified. We are witnessing that US hegemony has declined, the dominance of the West is coming to an end, rise of anti-US movements in the Islamic world and South America, followed by riots in the US and Britain. It seems the global political awakening is real. Unrests in Greece have spread to other European nations such as France, Italy, Spain, Denmark and Sweden. The global financial crisis continues to jeopardise the pension systems in Europe. Generous social security and welfare system that Western Europe has proudly maintained are facing a collapse. Political turbulence in Europe is likely to stay.
It is in the New York capital owners’ interest to politically awaken the colonised peoples and create a number of new nation states. The industrial revolution should spread to all corners of the Earth so that the world economy will grow faster. In Brzezinski’s words, the multi-polarisation of the world (as against US’s single hegemony) has its objective in the pursuit of cultural dignity and economic opportunities across the globe. Colonialism has suppressed the liberal development in the industrialising countries. Political awakening would boost nationalism that favours industrial growth. Goldman Sachs has predicted that the world’s middle class population would explode to 2 billion. It is a dream-come-true for international capital owners.
Multi-polarisation would have another advantage. In the past 50 years, the industrial complex that has supported the alliance between US, Britain and Israel has strived to destabilise many fragile nations. The rise of Russia, China or the Islamic world would counterbalance the destabilising effect of the triple alliance. Without the provocation by the alliance, anti-US Islamism would not have risen. On a surface level, Brzezinski posits Anglo-centricism or ‘international cooperationism’, which sits in the opposite end of the multi-polarism. According to him, the US must occupy the core of the international system. Only the US is able to lead the world such that the world would be thrown into chaos if the American leadership is lost. His ideology remains arrogant. The same line of argument is observed in the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) Report, written by Madeleine Albright who was a student of Brzezinski. A new era of international cooperation for a changed world (Brookings Institute)
Both the Brzezinski thesis and the MGI report agree that the world is becoming polycentric. There, he argues that the G8 has become a passé. Cooperation with the G20 or the BRICs will be the future form of global governance, in which leaders from the US, EU, Japan, China, Russia and India must deepen informal dialogues to nurture trust. The incumbent superpower US and the next potential China have to share the responsibility to lead the world. Since his thesis is based on his lecture at the Chatham House (Royal British Institute for International Relations), he described ‘Europe’ as Britain and Germany and France. However, in his 1997 thesis on Foreign Affairs magazine he assumed the players of the European integration were Germany and France.
Balkan, the Middle East, and Israel
Phillip Stevens, a columnist for the FT, has also written about the transnational political awakening in the third world, inspired by the internet and satellite broadcasts. He thinks the reason why the world looks chaotic these days is because our (=the West’s) value system is obsolete. Borrowing the words from Brent Scowcroft (Republican strategist), “[P]reviously fragile regions of the Balkans, the Middle East and central Asia have awakened.” Scowcroft participated in the making of the MGI Report. Both Brzezinski and Scowcroft see the emerging world order centred on several regional powers as a positive development.
Since Brzezinski is a White House advisor, it is likely that his strategy becomes Obama’s strategy. Brzezinski thesis argues that the US should immediately commence negotiation with Iran, as well as with the moderate faction within the Taliban. Priority is Palestine – US ought to support a new demilitarised Palestinian state, whose borders are protected by the NATO security forces. Israel must accept the division of Jerusalem, while it may keep some of the settlements in the area. Both parties would need to agree on the abandon the refugees’ right to return in exchange of financial compensation.
Effectively, this means Israel’s right to exist will be guaranteed if it accepts to give up some of its occupied territories. Nevertheless, it is unconceivable that European nations would send their battalions as the NATO forces. All over the Middle East, Islamism is on the rise. Europe would not accept a dirty job for Israel. Politically, Israel is losing its joker.
