Zbigniew brzezinski

11. A strong case for this initiative, pointing out the mutual economic benefits thereof, is made by Kurt Tong, 
"Revolutionizing America's Japan Policy," Foreign Policy (Winter 1996-1997). 
To conclude: For America, Japan should be its vital and foremost partner in the construction of an 
increasingly cooperative and pervasive system of global cooperation but not primarily its military ally in any 
regional arrangement designed to contest China's regional preeminence. In effect, Japan should be America's 
global partner in tackling the new agenda of world affairs. A regionally preeminent China should become 
America's Far Eastern anchor in the more traditional domain of power politics, helping thereby to foster a 
Eurasian balance of power, with Greater China in Eurasia's East matching in that respect the role of an 
enlarging Europe in Eurasia's West. 

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Chapter 7. Conclusion 
THE TIME HAS COME for the United States to formulate and prosecute an integrated, comprehensive, and 
long-term geostrategy for all of Eurasia. This need arises out of the interaction between two fundamental 
realities: America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what 
happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's 
global primacy and to America's historical legacy. 
American global primacy is unique in its scope and character. It is a hegemony of a new type that reflects 
many of the features of the American democratic system: it is pluralistic, permeable, and flexible. Attained in 
the course of less than a century, the principal geopolitical manifestation of that hegemony is America's 
unprecedented role on the Eurasian landmass, hitherto the point of origin of all previous contenders for global 
power. America is now Eurasia's arbiter, with no major Eurasian issue soluble without America's participation 
or contrary to America's interests. 
How the United States both manipulates and accommodates the principal geostrategic players on the 
Eurasian chessboard and how it manages Eurasia's key geopolitical pivots will be critical to the longevity and 
stability of America's global primacy. In Europe, the key players will continue to be France and Germany, and 
America's central goal should be to consolidate and expand the existing democratic bridgehead on Eurasia's 
western periphery. In Eurasia's Far East, China is likely to be increasingly central, and America will not have a 
political foothold on the Asian mainland unless an American-Chinese geostrategic consensus is successfully 
nurtured. In the center of Eurasia, the space between an enlarging Europe and a regionally rising China will 
remain a geopolitical black hole at least until Russia resolves its inner struggle over its postim-perial self-
definition, while the region to the south of Russia—the Eurasian Balkans—threatens to become a cauldron of 
ethnic conflict and great-power rivalry. 
In that context, for some time to come—for more than a generation—America's status as the world's premier 
power is unlikely to be contested by any single challenger. No nation-state is likely to match America in the 
four key dimensions of power (military, economic, technological, and cultural) that cumulatively produce 
decisive global political clout. Short of a deliberate or unintentional American abdication, the only real 
alternative to American global leadership in the foreseeable future is international anarchy. In that respect, it is 
correct to assert that America has become, as President Clinton put it, the world's "indispensable nation." 
It is important to stress here both the fact of that indispensabil-ity and the actuality of the potential for global 
anarchy. The disruptive consequences of population explosion, poverty-driven migration, radicalizing 
urbanization, ethnic and religious hostilities, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction would 
become unmanageable if the existing and underlying nation-state-based framework of even rudimentary 
geopolitical stability were itself to fragment. Without sustained and directed American involvement, before 
long the forces of global disorder could come to dominate the world scene. And the possibility of such a 
fragmentation is inherent in the geopolitical tensions not only of today's Eurasia but of the world more 
generally. 
The resulting risks to global stability are likely to be further increased by the prospect of a more general 
degradation of the human condition. Particularly in the poorer countries of the world, the demographic 
explosion and the simultaneous urbanization of these populations are rapidly generating a congestion not only 
of the disadvantaged but especially of the hundreds of millions of unemployed and increasingly restless young, 
whose level of frustration is growing at an exponential rate. Modern communications intensify their rupture 
with traditional authority, while making them increasingly conscious—and resentful—of global inequality and 
thus more susceptible to extremist mobilization. On the one hand, the rising phenomenon of global migrations, 
already reaching into the tens of millions, may act as a temporary safety valve, but on the other hand, it is also 
likely to serve as a vehicle for the transcontinental conveyance of ethnic and social conflicts. 
The global stewardship that America has inherited is hence likely to be buffeted by turbulence, tension, and 
at least sporadic violence. The new and complex international order, shaped by American hegemony and within 
which "the threat of war is off the table," is likely to be restricted to those parts of the world where American 

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power has been reinforced by democratic sociopolitical systems and by elaborate external multilateral—but 
also American-dominated—frameworks. 
An American geostrategy for Eurasia will thus be competing with the forces of turbulence. In Europe, there 
are signs that the momentum for integration and enlargement is waning and that traditional European 
nationalisms may reawaken before long. Large-scale unemployment persists even in the most successful 
European states, breeding xenophobic reactions that could suddenly cause a lurch in French or German politics 
toward significant political extremism and inward-oriented chauvinism. Indeed, a genuinely prerevolutionary 
situation could even be in the making. The historical timetable for Europe, outlined in chapter 3, will be met 
only if Europe's aspirations for unity are both encouraged and even prodded by the United States. 
The uncertainties regarding Russia's future are even greater and the prospects for a positive evolution much 
more tenuous. It is therefore imperative for America to shape a geopolitical context that is congenial to Russia's 
assimilation into a larger setting of growing European cooperation and that also fosters the self-reliant 
independence of its newly sovereign neighbors. Yet the viability of, say, Ukraine or Uzbekistan (not to speak of 
the ethnically bifurcated Kazakstan) will remain uncertain, especially it American attention becomes diverted 
by new internal crises in Europe, by a growing gap between Turkey and Europe, or by intensifying hostility in 
American-Iranian relations. 
The potential for an eventual grand accommodation with China could also be aborted by a future crisis over 
Taiwan; or because internal Chinese political dynamics prompt the emergence of an aggressive and hostile 
regime; or simply because American-Chinese relations turn sour. China could then become a highly 
destabilizing force in the world, imposing enormous strains on the American-Japanese relationship and perhaps 
also generating a disruptive geopolitical disorientation in Japan itself. In that setting, the stability of Southeast 
Asia would certainly be at risk, and one can only speculate how the confluence of these events would impact on 
the posture and cohesion of India, a country critical to the stability of South Asia. 
These observations serve as a reminder that neither the new global problems that go beyond the scope of the 
nation-state nor more traditional geopolitical concerns are likely to be resolved, or even contained, if the 
underlying geopolitical structure of global power begins to crumble. With warning signs on the horizon across 
Europe and Asia, any successful American policy must focus on Eurasia as a whole and be guided by a 
geostrategic design.