Kissinger And Brzezinski

A study which compares Kissinger and Brzezinski and their impact on US national security policy. It examines their views on world politics, on strategy and tactics for achieving national goals, and their consistency in pursuing these beliefs when in office.

As National Security Adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928–2017) guided U.S. foreign policy at a critical juncture of the Cold War. But his impact on America’s role in the world extends far beyond his years in the White House, and reverberates to this day. His geopolitical vision, scholarly writings, frequent media appearances, and policy advice to decades of presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama made him America’s grand strategist, a mantle only Henry Kissinger could also claim. Both men emigrated from turbulent Europe in 1938 and got their Ph.D.s in the 1950s from Harvard, then the epitome of the Cold War university. With its rise to global responsibilities, the United States needed professionals. Ambitious academics like Brzezinski soon replaced the old establishment figures who had mired the country in Vietnam, and they transformed the way America conducted foreign policy. Justin Vaïsse offers the first biography of the successful immigrant who completed a remarkable journey from his native Poland to the White House, interacting with influential world leaders from Gloria Steinem to Deng Xiaoping to John Paul II. This complex intellectual portrait reveals a man who weighed in on all major foreign policy debates since the 1950s, from his hawkish stance on the USSR to his advocacy for the Middle East peace process and his support for a U.S.-China global partnership. Through its examination of Brzezinski’s statesmanship and comprehensive vision, Zbigniew Brzezinski raises important questions about the respective roles of ideas and identity in foreign policy.

"Zbigniew Brzezinski's multifaceted career dealing with U.S. security and foreign policy has led him from the halls of academia to multiple terms in public service, including a stint as President Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. He is a renowned policy analyst and author who frequently appears as a commentator on popular talk shows, including MSNBC's Morning Joe and PBS's NewsHour. Brzezinski's strategic vision continues to carry a great deal of gravitas. This analysis of Brzezinski's statecraft will be of interest not only to the general public but also to students as well as policy makers in the United States and throughout the world. To assess the ramifications of Brzezinski's engagement in world politics and policy making, Charles Gati has enlisted many of the top foreign policy players of the past thirty years to reflect on and analyze the man and his work. A senior scholar in Eastern European and Russian studies, Gati observed firsthand much of the history and politics surrounding Brzezinski's career. His vibrant introduction and concluding one-on-one interview with Brzezinski lucidly frame the book's critical assessment of this major statesman's accomplishments." -- Publisher's description.

By 1991, following the disintegration first of the Soviet bloc and then of the Soviet Union itself, the United States was left standing tall as the only global super-power. Not only the 20th but even the 21st century seemed destined to be the American centuries. But that super-optimism did not last long. During the last decade of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st century, the stock market bubble and the costly foreign unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency, as well as the financial catastrophe of 2008 jolted America - and much of the West - into a sudden recognition of its systemic vulnerability to unregulated greed. Moreover, the East was demonstrating a surprising capacity for economic growth and technological innovation. That prompted new anxiety about the future, including even about America's status as the leading world power. This book is a response to a challenge. It argues that without an America that is economically vital, socially appealing, responsibly powerful, and capable of sustaining an intelligent foreign engagement, the geopolitical prospects for the West could become increasingly grave. The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more essential that America does not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in cultural hedonism but rather becomes more strategically deliberate and historically enlightened in its global engagement with the new East. This book seeks to answer four major questions: 1. What are the implications of the changing distribution of global power from West to East, and how is it being affected by the new reality of a politically awakened humanity? 2. Why is America's global appeal waning, how ominous are the symptoms of America's domestic and international decline, and how did America waste the unique global opportunity offered by the peaceful end of the Cold War? 3. What would be the likely geopolitical consequences if America did decline by 2025, and could China then assume America's central role in world affairs? 4. What ought to be a resurgent America's major long-term geopolitical goals in order to shape a more vital and larger West and to engage cooperatively the emerging and dynamic new East? America, Brzezinski argues, must define and pursue a comprehensive and long-term a geopolitical vision, a vision that is responsive to the challenges of the changing historical context. This book seeks to provide the strategic blueprint for that vision.

This analysis of Henry Kissinger's historical philosophy, statecraft, and views on international politics reveals Kissinger to be a transitional figure who urged a conversion of American foreign policy from an insular to a continental approach.

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski offers a reasoned but unsparing assessment of the last three presidential administrations' foreign policy. Though they cover less than two decades, these three administrations span a vitally important turning point in world history: the period in which the United States, having emerged from the Cold War with an unprecedented degree of power and prestige, managed to squander both in a remarkably short time. The tale of these three administrations is a tale of decline: from the competent but conventional thinking of the first Bush administration, to the good intentions hobbled by self-indulgence of the Clinton administration, to the mortgaging of America's future by the “suicidal statecraft” of the second Bush administration. Brzezinski concludes with a chapter on how America can regain its lost influence, if not its former dominance, in today's era of global political awakening. This scholarly yet highly opinionated book is both controversial and influential.

Going beyond superficial comparisons of Kissinger and Brzezinski, this study, by comparing their views on world politics and on strategy and tactics for achieving national goals and examining the consistency of their beliefs and actions while in and out of office, finds that, despite Brzezinski's attacks on Kissinger, he shared many of his views and copied many of his actions while in office and that their policy-making behaviour was, indeed, strongly influenced by their shared beliefs.

The foreign policy expert offers an assessment of recent American foreign policy, arguing for a more sophisticated posture in the world that positions America as a supporter of reform and justice in the world.