Posted on 10/23/2004 11:14:11 AM PDT by Destro
Yup. Ziggy is a cold-war nostalgist. That and he still has his Jimmy Carter brains.
I give Brzezinski points for seeing at the height of the Cold War that the Soviet Union's muslim south was its vulnerability.
I think, however, that Brzezinski has proven that he is rather shallow and dangerous aside from that one insight. The idea that an Islamist Iran would better a more effective barrier to the communists than a modernizing Shah has turned out to be the greatest disaster of the last thirty years.
He is correct in seeing that China is a necessary counterbalance to Russia, but he fails to see that Russia is itself a very necessary counterbalance to Chinese ambition.
He sees China's role in protecting Pakistan from Indian domination as a necessary one, which ignores that fact that India is generally a humane and modernist state, whereas Pakistan continues to be a source of hatred and instability in the region. Our engagement of Pakistan makes sense as a part of our good-cop-bad-cop routine with India; China's role as Pakistan's guarantor undermines us and strengthens muslim radicalism.
He favors a eurocentric Russia, but misses the fact that we need Russia as our counterbalance to the EU. And his notion of a Russia broken down into pieces is juvenile. First, it isn't going to happen. Second, Russia in pieces would not liberalize any more quickly than the united whole, but be easier pickings for the state mafias than it now is. Has an independent Belarus been a net positive for anyone? Sadly, although I have had higher hopes, has an independent Ukraine been a net positive for anyone, including the Ukraine?
While he is looking to separate Russia into pieces, he failed to mention the ethnic patchwork that is China, the turkic provinces which long for independence, and the Tibetans who face slow-motion extinction. Why would we separate the Russians into separate states, even if we had the power, which we do not, and leave China to dominate entire peoples against their will?
Let's pretend that an article similar to this was written in Russia about the US.
A dominant North America would exert influence throughout the region. It is therefore better to break up the United States into several smaller entities which then would move closer to the Russian model.
I am sure Americans would not take kindly to that, and I am certain Russians take a dim view of this article.
And while I am on the topic, why is it that the democrats say that they are better at diplomacy, when all they do is go around the world insulting everyone with bossy advice and contempt for other countries' contribution? The democrats are amateurs and lunatics when it comes to foreign affairs.
And you especially do not grease the skids for an ascending power. China's biggest strategic weakness is a lack of oil. If they got ahold of Siberia, that would no longer be a hinderance for their ambitions.
Which is why I posted this. The Democrats want to start off where they left off in the 1990s in regards to the Balkans and Russia - and China.
America should prepare to fight both Russia and China. But of course, this guy is on the take from the Chi Coms, so he speaks quite predictably given who are his masters.
Note: this topic is from 10/23/2004.Thanks ex-FReeper Destro.
Russia's first priority should be to modernize itself rather than to engage in a futile effort to regain its status as a global power. Given the country's size and diversity, a decentralized political system and free-market economics would be most likely to unleash the creative potential of the Russian people and Russia's vast natural resources. A loosely confederated Russia -- composed of a European Russia, a Siberian Republic, and a Far Eastern Republic -- would also find it easier to cultivate closer economic relations with its neighbors.Zbig Boy would be more at home in a world that had the geopolitical version of "American Idol". His drool here is from 1997.
From the guy who helped create Islamic Iran.
“And while I am on the topic, why is it that the democrats say that they are better at diplomacy, when all they do is go around the world insulting everyone with bossy advice and contempt for other countries’ contribution? The democrats are amateurs and lunatics when it comes to foreign affairs.”
The Democrats are the party of Wilson and FDR, who respectively were the architects of the dissolution of Austria, thus making possible a Hitler, and the imposition of a United Nations Org., making possible the Third World chaos of the last half century.
Democrats are amateurs and lunatics, yes, but there most dangerous attribute is their idealism.
“THEIR” most dangerous attribute, actually....
The Democrats are the party of Wilson and FDR, who respectively were the architects of the dissolution of Austria, thus making possible a Hitler, and the imposition of a United Nations Org., making possible the Third World chaos of the last half century.
Yes, Austria-Hungary was shell-shocked by modernity, yet it arguably supported the most ‘liberal’ intellectual life on the Continent - there was no pressing existential need to smash it like a pot, as Wilson supported in his quest for ideal “nation-states” that America could respect.
I never even mentioned the Ottoman Empire carve-up by the French and Brits, which again had overwhelmingly negative consequences, and which Wilson acceded to, covered morally by his “self-determination” rot and League of Nations hooey.
I wholeheartedly agree with the notion that Wilson was an egghead idealist (and preacher’s son IIRC) that combined a lack of knowledge of the real world with an over-inflated sense of his own abilities and importance. And, as such, the damage he inflicted has been far reaching as it has been long lasting. No question that today’s UN is a direct descendant of his “League of Nations” (which, at least for me, evokes Athens’ “Delian League” which didn’t turn out so well either).
But I think that it’s not so much of what was carved up in 1919 as the ideas behind it.
The Ottoman Empire was the “sick man of Europe” and was by all accounts going to be divvied up - especially as the picked the wrong side.
What was true for the Ottoman Empire was really no less true of the A-H empire. And perhaps more so, given that they had a huge role in starting the conflagration to begin with.
But I think Wilson’s notions of “ethnic self-determination” was the powder for the powder keg that was the 20 Century (and beyond). I can draw a more or less straight line from “ethnic self-determination” to the Anschluss, dismemberment of Czechoslovakia (which of course was a 1919 creation) as well as the invasion of Poland. And then right on through the the ethnic cleansing that we have seen repeated in the Balkans within the last 10-20 years.
The Great War was the Great Tragedy of Western European civilization. All of the major European actors bore some portion of the blame.
Before and after the Armistice, Wilson’s poisonous Progressive ideology helped advance Bolshevism and nationalism out of an undeserved spirit of moral superiority and Puritan/Quaker/Universalist mission.
This is the totalitarian germ of American-style socialism.
*************************************************
With regard to Zbig’s second-hand rehash of Haushofer and Mackinder, I recommend the emetic of Gyorgy’s “Geopolitics: The New German Science”.
WWI was all about Empires colliding - that of England, Austria, Turkey, Germany and perhaps Russia as well. I actually don’t think Wilson had much of a role to play in setting off the conflagration that was WWI. I think his ideas that became mainstream in 1918 and 1919 were certainly in retrospect, and possibly at the time very dangerous.
I don’t really know how you avoid WWI - sure there were miscalculations, misread bluffs, various Bismarckian mutual assistance guarantees - but fundamentally I suspect there was an air of inevitability about the whole thing.
Post WWI - that’s another matter entirely - and I do agree that Wilson’s ideology was poisonous as I have previously argued.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.