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Soyjak.Party / The Sharty - The altchan born from the ashes of /qa/; also a containment thread
We all wanna Crack that foxy right................. Boys who like cars and tanks and also love goth Latinas while we skate and drink white monster say 'hell yeah'
CONTENTSIntroduction: Superpower Politics1. Hegemony of a New Type- The Short Road to Global Supremacy- The First Global Power- The American Global System2. The Eurasian Chessboard- Geopolitics and Geostrategy- Geostrategic Players and Geopolitical Pivots- Critical Choices and Potential Challenges3. The Democratic Bridgehead- Grandeur and Redemption- America's Central Objective- Europe's Historic Timetable4. The Ulack Hole- Russia's New Geopolitical Setting- Geostrategic Phantasmagoria- The Dilemma of the One Alternative5. The Eurasian Balkans- The Ethnic Cauldron- The Multiple Contest- Neither Dominion Nor Exclusion6. The Far Eastern Anchor- China: Not Global but Regional- Japan: Not Regional but International- America's Geostrategic Adjustment7. Conclusion- A Geostrategy for Eurasia- A Trans-Eurasian Security System- Beyond the Last Global SuperpowerMAPS- The Sino-Soviet Bloc and Three Central StrategicFronts- The Roman Empire at Its Height- The Manchu Empire at Its Height- Approximate Scope of Mongol Imperial Control,1280- European Global Supremacy, 1900- British Paramountcy, 1860-1914- American Global Supremacy- The World's Geopolitically Central Continent andIts Vital Peripheries- The Eurasian Chessboard- The Global Zone of Percolating Violence- France's and Germany's Geopolitical Orbits ofSpecial Interest- Is This Really "Europe"?- Beyond 2010: The Critical Core of Europe'sSecurity- Loss of Ideological Control and ImperialRetrenchment- Russian Military Bases in the Former Soviet Space- The Eurasian Balkans- Major Ethnic Groups in Central Asia- The Turkic Ethnolinguistic Zone- The Competitive Interests of Russia, Turkey, andIran- Caspian-Mediterranean Oil Export Pipelines- Boundary and Territorial Disputes in East Asia- Potential Scope of China's Sphere of Influence andCollision Points- Overlap Between a Greater China and anAmerican-Japanese Anti-China CoalitionLIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES- The Continents: Area- The Continents: Population- The Continents: GNP- European Organizations- EU Membership: Application to Accession- Demographic Data for the Eurasian Balkans- Asian Armed ForcesINTRODUCTIONSuperpower PoliticsEVER SINCE THE CONTINENTS started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia hasbeen the center of world power. In different ways, at different times, the peoples inhabiting Eurasia—thoughmostly those from its Western European periphery—penetrated and dominated the world's other regions asindividual Eurasian states attained the special status and enjoyed the privileges of being the world's premierpowers.The last decade of the twentieth century has witnessed a tectonic shift in world affairs. For the first time ever,a non-Eurasian power has emerged not only as the key arbiter of Eurasian power relations but also as theworld's paramount power. The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapidascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly globalpower.Eurasia, however, retains its geopolitical importance. Not only is its western periphery—Europe—still thelocation of much of the world's political and economic power, but its eastern region— Asia—has lately becomea vital center of economic growth and rising political influence. Hence, the issue of how a globally engagedAmerica copes with the complex Eurasian power relationships— and particularly whether it prevents theemergence of a dominant and antagonistic Eurasian power—remains central to America's capacity to exerciseglobal primacy.It follows that—in addition to cultivating the various novel dimensions of power (technology,communications, information, as well as trade and finance)—American foreign policy must remain concernedwith the geopolitical dimension and must employ its influence in Eurasia in a manner that creates a stablecontinental equilibrium, with the United States as the political arbiter.Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played, and thatstruggle involves geostrategy—the strategic management of geopolitical interests. It is noteworthy that asrecently as 1940 two aspirants to global power, Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, agreed explicitly (in the secretnegotiations of November of that year) that America should be excluded from Eurasia. Each realized that theinjection of American power into Eurasia would preclude his ambitions regarding global domination. Eachshared the assumption that Eurasia is the center of the world and that he who controls Eurasia controls theworld. A half century later, the issue has been redefined: will America's primacy in Eurasia endure, and to whatends might it be applied?The ultimate objective of American policy should be benign and visionary: to shape a truly cooperative globalcommunity, in keeping with long-range trends and with the fundamental interests of humankind. But in themeantime, it is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus also ofchallenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore thepurpose of this book.Zbigniew BrzezinskiWashington, D.C.April 1997Chapter 1. Hegemony of a New TypeHEGEMONY is AS OLD AS MANKIND. But America's current global supremacy is distinctive in therapidity of its emergence, in its global scope, and in the manner of its exercise. In the course of a single century,America has transformed itself—and has also been transformed by international dynamics—from a countryrelatively isolated in the Western Hemisphere into a power of unprecedented worldwide reach and grasp.THE SHORT ROAD TO GLOBAL SUPREMACYThe Spanish-American War in 1898 was America's first overseas war of conquest. It thrust American power farinto the Pacific, beyond Hawaii to the Philippines. By the turn of the century, American strategists were alreadybusy developing doctrines for a two-ocean naval supremacy, and the American navy had begun to challenge thenotion that Britain "rules the waves." American claims of a special status as the sole guardian of the WesternHemisphere's security—proclaimed earlier in the century by the Monroe Doctrine and subsequently justified byAmerica's alleged "manifest destiny"—were even further enhanced by the construction of the Panama Canal,which facilitated naval domination over both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.The basis for America's expanding geopolitical ambitions was provided by the rapid industrialization of thecountry's economy. By the outbreak of World War I, America's growing economic might already accounted forabout 33 percent of global GNP, which displaced Great Britain as the world's leading industrial power. Thisremarkable economic dynamism was fostered by a culture that favored experimentation and innovation.America's political institutions and free market economy created unprecedented opportunities for ambitious andiconoclastic inventors, who were not inhibited from pursuing their personal dreams by archaic privileges orrigid social hierarchies. In brief, national culture was uniquely congenial to economic growth, and by attractingand quickly assimilating the most talented individuals from abroad, the culture also facilitated the expansion ofnational power.World War I provided the first occasion for the massive projection of American military force into Europe. Aheretofore relatively isolated power promptly transported several hundred thousand of its troops across theAtlantic—a transoceanic military expedition unprecedented in its size and scope, which signaled the emergenceof a new major player in the international arena. Just as important, the war also prompted the first majorAmerican diplomatic effort to apply American principles in seeking a solution to Europe's internationalproblems. Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points represented the injection into European geopolitics ofAmerican idealism, reinforced by American might. (A decade and a half earlier, the United States had played aleading role in settling a Far Eastern conflict between Russia and Japan, thereby also asserting its growinginternational stature.) The fusion of American idealism and American power thus made itself fully felt on theworld scene.Strictly speaking, however, World War I was still predominantly a European war, not a global one. But itsself-destructive character marked the beginning of the end of Europe's political, economic, and culturalpreponderance over the rest of the world. In the course of the war, no single European power was able toprevail decisively — and the war's outcome was heavily influenced by the entrance into the conflict of therising non-European power, America. Thereafter, Europe would become increasingly the object, rather than thesubject, of global power politics.However, this brief burst of American global leadership did not produce a continuing American engagementin world affairs. Instead, America quickly retreated into a self-gratifying combination of isolationism andidealism. Although by the mid-twenties and early thirties totalitarianism was gathering strength on theEuropean continent, American power—by then including a powerful two-ocean fleet that clearly outmatchedthe British navy—remained disengaged. Americans preferred to be bystanders to global politics.Consistent with that predisposition was the American concept of security, based on a view of America as acontinental island. American strategy focused on sheltering its shores and was thus narrowly national in scope,with little thought given to international or global considerations. The critical international players were still theEuropean powers and, increasingly, Japan.The European era in world politics came to a final end in the course of World War II, the first truly globalwar. Fought on three continents simultaneously, with the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans also heavilycontested, its global dimension was symbolically demonstrated when British and Japanese soldiers—representing, respectively, a remote Western European island and a similarly remote East Asian island—collided thousands of miles from their homes on the Indian-Burmese frontier. Europe and Asia had become asingle battlefield.Had the war's outcome been a clear-cut victory for Nazi Germany, a single European power might then haveemerged as globally preponderant. (Japan's victory in the Pacific would have gained for that nation thedominant Far Eastern role, but in all probability, Japan would still have remained only a regional hege-mon.)Instead, Germany's defeat was sealed largely by the two extra-European victors, the United States and theSoviet Union, which became the successors to Europe's unfulfilled quest for global supremacy.The next fifty years were dominated by the bipolar American-Soviet contest for global supremacy. In somerespects, the contest Between the United States and the Soviet Union represented the fulfillment of thegeopoliticians' fondest theories: it pitted the world's leading maritime power, dominant over both the Atlanticand the Pacific Oceans, against the world's leading land power, paramount on the Eurasian heartland (with theSino-Soviet bloc encompassing a space remarkably reminiscent of the scope of the Mongol Empire). Thegeopolitical dimension could not have been clearer: North America versus Eurasia, with the world at stake. Thewinner would truly dominate the globe. There was no one else to stand in the way, once victory was finallygrasped.Each rival projected worldwide an ideological appeal that was infused with historical optimism, that justifiedfor each the necessary exertions while reinforcing its conviction in inevitable victory. Each rival was clearlydominant within its own space—unlike the imperial European aspirants to global hegemony, none of whichever quite succeeded in asserting decisive preponderance within Europe itself. And each used its ideology toreinforce its hold over its respective vassals and tributaries, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the age ofreligious warfare.The combination of global geopolitical scope and the proclaimed universality of the competing dogmas gavethe contest unprecedented intensity. But an additional factor—also imbued with global implications—made thecontest truly unique. The advent of nuclear weapons meant that a head-on war, of a classical type, between thetwo principal contestants would not only spell their mutual destruction but could unleash lethal consequencesfor a significant portion of humanity. The intensity of the conflict was thus simultaneously subjected toextraordinary self-restraint on the part of both rivals.In the geopolitical realm, the conflict was waged largely on the peripheries of Eurasia itself. The Sino-Sovietbloc dominated most of Eurasia but did not control its peripheries. North America succeeded in entrenchingitself on both the extreme western and extreme eastern shores of the great Eurasian continent. The defense ofthese continental bridgeheads (epitomizedon the western "front" by the
