When the Carter Administration’s most conservative hawk
criticized President Bush’s foreign policy at a recent conference
sponsored by the American Prospect, the crowd of liberal
Democrats went wild, and Washington paid attention. Had Zbigniew
Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, become a
‘kinder gentler’ conservative? Was it possible that the man who had
been out of the public eye for decades was seizing this opportunity
to stage a political comeback?
In a recent Slate analysis, Fred Kaplan examines the
philosophy behind Brzezinski’s attack on President Bush’s
‘paranoiac view of the world’ which has led to ‘the loss of U.S.
international credibility [and] growing U.S. international
isolation.’ Kaplan observes that his speech was neither motivated
by a softening of conservative values nor the desire to run for
office, but rather, an effective reiteration of his 1997 book,
The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives.
An ‘eloquent presentation of ideas dating back to Metternich, if
not Thucydides,’ The Grand Chessboard examines America’s
alliance with Eurasia in order to perpetuate ‘the fostering of
genuine partnerships’ that are ‘critical to the longevity and
stability of America’s global primacy.’
Kaplan concludes that diplomacy and alliance are not exclusively
liberal notions, but rather, intelligent foreign policy.
— Erin Ferdinand
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