Zbigniew Brzezinski： How To Address Strategic Insecurity In A Turbulent Age
The ideal geopolitical response to the crisis of global
power is a trilateral connection between the United States, China and Russia. Caution and collaboration must prevail between the United
States, China and Russia if a fundamental conflict is to be avoided.
The following piece is adapted from a speech Brzezinski delivered
at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in Oslo, Norway in December.
OSLO, Norway ― Since the end of the last major world war
some 70 years ago, international peace has been preserved by the threat of the
nuclear bomb. Because of its unique and unilateral ability to devastate the
world, the bomb fundamentally changed the realities of international politics.
However, its impact on global stability began to fade as more countries
developed similarly destructive capabilities.
American monopoly of nuclear weapons lasted less than a
decade. Their fear-inspiring role diminished by the mid-1950s, but the reality
of U.S. nuclear arms was still sufficiently credible to defy the Soviet
imposition in the late 1940s of a ground blockade designed to compel a U.S.
withdrawal from Berlin; while in the early 1960s the U.S. succeeded in inducing
the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons from Cuba.
However, the ultimate resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis
was less a one-sided victory, and more a combination of threats and of
politically face-saving compromises between the two superpowers. Not only did
the U.S. have to publicly pledge never to invade Cuba, it also secretly agreed
to withdraw its Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
In effect, two
decades or so after the introduction of such weapons into international
affairs, America had to take Soviet concerns increasingly into account, in a
context in which nuclear weapons did contribute to the preservation of peace
even as they signaled also their potential parity in the waging of war. In any
case, the semi-exclusive possession of nuclear weapons during the early phases
of the Cold War by only two major powers gave them the special status of
uniquely shared global responsibility in which both understood the other and
neither was inclined to produce a confrontation that could generate a mutual
catastrophe.
In more recent
times, global stability was jeopardized by persistent contests of will
involving major powers ― but again not warranting the use of nuclear weapons.
As America’s nuclear strategic monopoly faded, the United States sought to
create advantages elsewhere, notably in the peaceful cooperation between the
United States and communist China under Deng Xiaoping. By the 1980s, the two
powers were informally even collaborating in making the Russian invasion of
Afghanistan increasingly costly and ultimately futile, but at no point
threatening to slide into a nuclear war.
By the end of that decade and in the early 21st century, the
basic divisions of global power were fundamentally being changed. America and
Russia were still the principal rivals, but China, armed with a more modest
number of its own nuclear weapons, was looming increasingly large on the Far
East’s horizon. Though the American-Chinese relationship did not evolve into a
comprehensive alliance, selective and sometimes secret cooperation has become
one of its defining characteristics.
Consequently, the three principal shareholders of global
power are less inclined to resort to nuclear provocations, but caution and
collaboration must prevail between the United States, China and Russia, if a
fundamental conflict is to be avoided.
Russia’s Post-Soviet Challenges
For Russia, the
regional situation has become increasingly difficult. Former non-Russian members
of the Soviet Union are now openly asserting their own national independence
and refusing to participate in any structure evocative of the deceased Soviet
Union. The Central Asian republics, mostly of Islamic faith, have become
determined to translate their initially nominal independence into genuine
statehood. That aspiration is also shared by such Slavic and Russian Orthodox
states as Ukraine and Belarus, both of which are now committed to separate
statehood, their own flag, armed forces and closer links to Europe.
In the meantime, China’s strategic penetration of Central
Asia in order to gain direct commercial access to Europe is already prompting a
significant reduction of Russia’s economic domination of the eastern portion of
the former Soviet Union.
Currently, China’s relationship with Russia seems to offer
Beijing a somewhat more attractive short-term alternative, though both sides
have historical grievances that make each suspect the intentions of the other.
This is why the ambitious Chinese initiative of OBOR (One Belt, One Road) in
Central Asia has produced some uneasiness in Moscow, which has been cautiously
encouraging a local slowdown in the development of China’s planned commercial outreach
all the way to Europe.
（Map：The Russian province of Amur Oblast has a population of 830,000. In its entire Far
East District, Russia has a population of 6 million. On the other side of
Amur River border between Russia and China the Chinese province of Heilongjiang
has a population of 40 million.）
The scale of this
contrast could provoke geopolitical problems between China and Russia in the
not-too-distant future. In the longer run still for Russia, the most ominous of
all may be the spreading hope among some Chinese military leaders that China
will eventually regain the huge spaces of the far eastern Siberian areas
acquired forcibly in the mid-1800s by tsarist Russia. The distant and basically
unpopulated extremities of Asia could thus become the long-run focus of China’s
vision of its geopolitical restoration.
In any case, Russia is faced with an increasingly complex
relationship with both China and the U.S., which inevitably constrains its
long-range ambitions. Its aspirations can only be realized if Russia ―
disabused of the idea of continental supremacy ― evolves ultimately into a
leading player in Europe itself.
The U.S. Must Not
Treat China as an Enemy
At the same time, it needs to be acknowledged that America’s
policy towards China has become more ambiguous and lacking in a shared
strategic vision that was so characteristic a decade or two ago of the
increasingly cordial relationship between Washington and Beijing.
The U.S must be wary of the great danger that China and
Russia could form a strategic alliance, generated in part by their own internal,
political, and ideological momentum, and in part by the poorly thought out
policies of the United States. The U.S. should not act towards China as if it
were already an enemy; significantly, it should not favor India as America’s
principal ally in Asia. This would almost guarantee a closer connection between
China and Russia. Nothing is more dangerous to the U.S. than such a close
connection.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. role in the politically awakened
Eurasia is becoming increasingly defensive. The U.S. is residually present in
the region ― in the U.S.-controlled Pacific islands ― thereby demonstrating
America’s stake in Eurasian security. The U.S. is openly committed to defend
both Japan and South Korea. But that commitment depends on strategic caution as
well as determination.
The United States has to be ready to defend west-central
Europe as well. It has to be ready to react militarily despite, and perhaps
even because of, international doubts regarding America’s determination and
willingness to act, if need be, on its own.
Thus in Europe, it is
therefore essential that America conveys unambiguously to the Kremlin that it
will not be passive, that it is not planning major political or military
counter threats in order to ostracize Russia but that Russia must know that
there would be a massive blockade of Russia’s maritime access to the West if
Russian forces were used to occupy the capital of Latvia or to storm Tallinn,
the capital of now independent Estonia. A blockade by the West that impacts the
Baltic Basin ports of St. Petersburg and the Black Sea Basin port of
Novorossiysk through the Dardanelles would affect nearly two-thirds of all
Russian maritime trade.
A strong U.S. reaction would drastically limit Russia’s
ability to engage in profitable international trade, and it would provide the
needed time for the injection of much larger American and some west European
forces, assisted also in Central Europe by the aroused local allies of the
United States. With China probably neutral, Russia’s leadership would be thus
confronted with an unpalatable local choice: an economically debilitating
isolation or a highly visible pullback.
In the meantime, an appealing longer-range program for
China’s rise could thus involve the gradual infiltration and settlement by
Chinese laborers of the huge but empty northeast Eurasia. The current
officially-demarcated Chinese-Russian boundaries are already being overwhelmed
by a steady influx of manpower while Asia’s empty northeast (incorporated into
the tsarist empire in the mid-1850s) has not experienced serious attempts to
promote major Russian settlements.
Looming Instability in Northeast Asia
All of that cumulatively suggests that during the next several
decades, current northeast Asian territorial arrangements may become
geopolitically unstable, occasionally even explosive, and eventually
precipitating also a more enduring redefinition of the critical lines of
division on the huge Eurasian continent. Obviously America will be only a
distant observer, though probably prudently expanding its bilateral ties with
both Japan and South Korea.
More immediately, the security problem posed by North Korea
will also require enhanced security cooperation between the United States,
China and ― hopefully ― a more Europe-oriented Russia. Both China and Russia
would be likely to have a more positive impact on whatever political change may
be taking place in North Korea than overt and separate American efforts.
A prolonged period of relative stability and the absence of
a major war could gradually have a cumulative political impact on North Korean
domestic evolution, pointing perhaps to some broader accommodation based on
guarantees from North Korea’s immediate and more powerful neighbors. (China,
U.S., Japan and maybe Russia, obviously all come to mind.)
The U.S., China and Russia Should Join to Stabilize the
Mideast
Last but by no means least, the ongoing civil wars in the
Middle East, fueled by religious hatreds; potential nuclear conflicts possibly
unleashed by the extremists in Iran; not to mention geopolitical ambitions of
an enflamed nationalistic wave in Turkey ― perhaps backed by the Russian
military ― each contain the possibility of a major regional eruption.
The ideal geopolitical response is a trilateral connection
between the United States, China and then Russia, with Russia in that context
having no choice but to accept the reality and the necessity of a better
relationship both with China and the United States.
Geopolitical ambitions of an enflamed nationalistic wave in
Turkey contain the possibility of a major regional eruption.
As regional uncertainties intensify, with potentially
destructive consequences for all three of the major nuclear powers, it is time
to think of what might have been and still could be. In that context, China
needs to rethink how it can afford to evade responsibility for what happens in
its neighborhood. Could that threaten Chinese interests and push China in an
excessively tight military link with Russia, which then could generate the
threat of a joint stand against the United States?
Or will Russia’s global standing be more respected if the
result is a world in which the three most militarily powerful states (America,
China, Russia) cooperate more closely on issues pertaining to the Middle East
in the immediate, and in the longer range in the Eastern Pacific regions in
which Chinese ambitions for the moment are dormant but could easily be
awakened?
Climate Change Will Impact Geopolitics
All of the above is likely to be complicated by the
increasing probability that severe weather problems on a global scale will
intensify political problems. Global warming is already beginning to impact
more ominously, signaling prospects of extensive meltdowns and the resulting
threats to some existing habitations. Cumulatively, that could generate greater
public anxiety than strategic insecurity is now a fact of life on a scale
heretofore not experienced by the now increasingly vulnerable humanity.
Global warming is already beginning to impact more ominously.
Regional cooperation will thus require shared wisdom and
political will to work together despite historic conflicts and the continued
presence of nuclear weaponry, always potentially devastating but even after
seventy years still unlikely to result in a one-sided political victory.
下面是中国官方对布热津斯基此篇演讲重点内容的不准确翻译：
美国前国家安全顾问布热津斯基2016年11月在在诺贝尔和平奖论坛(Nobel Peace Prize Forum)上的演讲中认为：
下面是中国官方对布热津斯基此篇演讲重点内容的不准确翻译：
美国前国家安全顾问布热津斯基2016年11月在在诺贝尔和平奖论坛(Nobel Peace Prize Forum)上的演讲中认为：
长远来看，最让俄罗斯担心的兆头可能是中国一些人心中不断增强的愿望，即收回19世纪中期被沙俄用武力夺走的东西伯利亚地区的广袤土地。亚洲东端这片遥远而荒无人烟的地方，有可能成为中国重塑地缘政治的愿景中的远期焦点。无论如何，俄罗斯和中美两国的关系都在变得愈发复杂，这不可避免地会限制它的长远抱负。只有打消大陆霸权念头，最终将自己变成欧洲的主要角色之一，俄罗斯的愿望才有可能实现。美国必须警惕中俄可能结成战略同盟的巨大危险，这在某种程度上源自中俄自身内部的政治和意识形态因素的推动力，同时也由美国考虑不周的政策所致。美国不应把中国视作既有敌人来对待，也不应把印度当成其在亚洲的首要盟友，这几乎肯定会让中俄联系更加紧密。对美国来说，再没有什么比这种密切关系更危险的了。
