The Choice: Global Domination Or Global Leadership

Front Cover
Basic Books, Mar 2, 2004 - Business & Economics - 242 pages
The overwhelming reality of our time is this: In the opening years of the 21st century, the United States finds itself not only the most powerful nation on earth but the most powerful nation that has ever existed. Given the contradictory roles America plays in the world, we are fated to be the catalyst for either a new global community or for global chaos. If we don't lead, Zbigniew Brzezinski contends, rather than merely dominate by force, we could face worldwide hostility much like the regional hostility now confronting Israel.Brzezinski argues for a more complex and sophisticated view of our global role than much of our media and political leadership are willing to entertain. We are the world's policeman, but we have to be seen as a fair one. We are entitled to a higher level of security than other nations (because we assume greater risks), but we are also the proponent of essential freedoms. We are uniquely powerful, but our homeland is uniquely -and chronically-vulnerable. "Globalization" precludes immunity for even the most powerful. This is an impressively lucid assessment, informed by decades of experience on the front lines of foreign policy, of where we stand in the world and where we should go from here.

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Contents

American Hegemony and Global Security
1
The Dilemmas of National Insecurity
7
The Dilemmas of the New Global Disorder
41
Copyright

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About the author (2004)

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland on March 28, 1928. He received a bachelor's degree in 1949 and a master's degree in 1950 from McGill University in Montreal and a doctorate in political science in 1953 from Harvard University. He was the national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter during the years of the Iran hostage crisis and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. He wrote numerous books during his lifetime including Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics, Power and Principle, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower, and Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power. He was also a professor of foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a frequent expert commentator on PBS and ABC News. He died on May 26, 2017 at the age of 89.

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