Zbigniew brzezinski

THE DILEMMA OF THE ONE ALTERNATIVE 
Russia's only real geostrategic option—the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also 
maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself—is Europe. And not just any Europe, 
but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO. Such a Europe is taking shape, as we have seen in 
chapter 3, and it is also likely to remain linked closely to America. That is the Europe to which Russia will have 
to relate, if it is to avoid dangerous geopolitical isolation. 
For America, Russia is much too weak to be a partner but still too strong to be simply its patient. It is more 
likely to become a problem, unless America fosters a setting that helps to convince the Russians that the best 
choice for their country is an increasingly organic connection with a transatlantic Europe. Although a long-term 
Russo-Chinese and Russo-Iranian strategic alliance is not likely, it is obviously important for America to avoid 
policies that could distract Russia from making the needed geopolitical choice. To the extent possible, 
American relations with China and Iran should, therefore, be formulated with their impact on Russian 
geopolitical calculations also kept in mind. Perpetuating illusions regarding grand geostrategic options can only 
delay the historic choice that Russia must make in order to bring to an end its deep malaise. 
Only a Russia that is willing to accept the new realities of Europe, both economic and geopolitical, will be 
able to benefit internally from the enlarging scope of transcontinental European cooperation in commerce, 
communications, investment, and education. Russia's participation in the Council of Europe is thus a step very 
much in the right direction. It is a foretaste of further institutional links between the new Russia and the 
growing Europe. It also implies that if Russia pursues this path, it will have no choice other than eventually to 
emulate the course chosen by post-Ottoman Turkey, when it decided to shed its imperial ambitions and 
embarked very deliberately on the road of modernization, Europeanization, and democratization. 
No other option can offer Russia the benefits that a modern, rich, and democratic Europe linked to America 
can. Europe and America are not a threat to a Russia that is a nonexpansive national and democratic state. They 
have no territorial designs on Russia, which China someday might have, nor do they share an insecure and 
potentially violent frontier, which is certainly the case with Russia's ethnically and territorially unclear border 
with the Muslim nations to the south. On the contrary, for Europe as well as for America, a national and 
democratic Russia is a geopolitically desirable entity, a source of stability in the volatile Eurasian complex. 
Russia consequently faces the dilemma that the choice in favor of Europe and America, in order for it to 
yield tangible benefits, requires, first of all, a clear-cut abjuration of the imperial past and, second, no 
tergiversation regarding the enlarging Europe's political and security links with America. The first requirement 
means accommodation to the geopolitical pluralism that has come to prevail in the space of the former Soviet 
Union. Such accommodation does not exclude economic cooperation, rather on the model of the old European 
Free Trade Area, but it cannot include limits on the political sovereignty of the new states—for the simple 
reason that they do not wish it. Most important in that respect is the need for clear and unambiguous acceptance 
by Russia of Ukraine's separate existence, of its borders, and of its distinctive national identity. 
The second requirement may be even more difficult to swallow. A truly cooperative relationship with the 
transatlantic community cannot be based on the notion that those democratic states of Europe that wish to be 
part of it can be excluded because of a Russian say-so. The expansion of that community need not be rushed, 
and it certainly should not be promoted on an anti-Russian theme. But neither can it, nor should it, be halted by 
a political fiat that it-srll relied s an antiquated notion of European security relations. An expanding and 
democratic Europe has to be an open-ended historical process, not subject to politically arbitrary geographic 
limits. 
For many Russians, the dilemma of the one alternative may at first, and for some time to come, be too 
difficult to resolve. It will require an enormous act of political will and perhaps also an outstanding leader, 
capable of making the choice and articulating the vision of a democratic, national, truly modern and European 
Russia. That may not happen for some time. Overcoming the post-Communist and postimperial crises will 

---

require not only more time than is the case with the post-Communist transformation of Central Europe but also 
the emergence of a farsighted and stable political leadership. No Russian Ataturk is now in sight. Nonetheless, 
Russians will eventually have to come to recognize that Russia's national redefinition is not an act of 
capitulation but one of liberation.9 They will have to accept that what Yeltsin said in Kiev in 1990 about a 
nonimperial future for Russia was absolutely on the mark. And a genuinely nonimperial Russia will still be a 
great power, spanning Eurasia, the world's largest territorial unit by far. 
In any case, a redefinition of "What is Russia and where is Russia" will probably occur only by stages, and it 
will require a wise and firm Western posture. America and Europe will have to help. They should offer Russia 
not only a special treaty or charter with NATO, but they should also begin the process of exploring with Russia 
the shaping of an eventual transcontinental system of security and cooperation that goes considerably beyond 
the loose structure of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). And if Russia 
consolidates its internal democratic institutions and makes tangible progress in free-market-based economic 
development, its ever-closer association with NATO and the EU should not be ruled out.