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Thanks Kole and Richard for the excerpts from The Grand Chessboard and related quotes, as well as the reflections on/interpretations thereof. During the past six months it's been understandable that focus would be placed on that section of Brzezinski's latest volume that deals with the Caucaus-Caspian-Central Asia nexus, given the war in Afghanistan and the U.S. and allied military, economic and diplomatic consolidation from Georgia to Uzbekistan. But his grandiose musings on the role of Germany on the European continent are not to be ignored either. At the time of the publication of the book, 1997, Brzezinski initially cloaked his advocacy of a German-dominated Europe with an arcane allusion to the so-called Dresden Triad (Nexus?) of Germany, France and Poland, those three nations having the largest populations of all continental European countries West of Ukraine and Russia. The weak leg of the stool, Brzezinski's own homeland, Poland, had in his purview a role to play in wrenching Ukraine, the Baltic states and Belarus away from Russian economic and military influence - and in fact was one of the first three former Warsaw Pact nations inducted into NATO the very year of the book's release - but perhaps more reflects Brzezinski's own nationalist dreams than anything reality has borne out in the interim. As for the remaining two European powerhouses, Germany and France, he essentially dismisses France - France in general, with no distinctions made between the people themselves or the populace and the government/elite, as is the wont of 'geostrategists' of his ilk - as vainglorious, slightly foppish buffoons peroccupied with past delusions of grandeur, which are to be flattered by the US and Germany while the latter two go about their business of dominating Europe and, in the second case, the world. It is from Brzezinski that I've borrowed the figures about (reunited) Germany having the largest population and the greatest GDP, and being the largest contributor to NATO, of all nations in Europe West of the former Soviet republics. It's worth mentioning that Brzezinski pointedly remarks that NATO is the one alliance/organization that guarantees U.S. presence in (and effective control over) Europe. It is in fact Washington's Trojan Horse. This is important to remember at the moment when certain canards are being circulated to the effect that the Bush-Rumsfeld regime is acting 'unilaterally' by not officially cutting its NATO allies/subordinates in for a big enough piece of the action in Afghanistan and the proposed war against Iraq. In fact NATO has for the first time ever invoked its 'mutual defense' Article Five clause, and that for a war (far) outside the European continent and the stipulated zone of alleged mutual self-defense. The truth of the matter is that NATO exists solely for the furtherance of US geopolitical designs, with Britain as junior partner in many ways, and with at times some conflict of interest between Washington on one hand and France (less and less it appears) and Germany on the other, but underpinning eveything a joint understanding about how the world should be carved up. Brzezinski's role in formulating imperialism's global strategy for unipolar domination cannot be overestimated. He has been a major voice in each presidential administration since that of Jimmy Carter in 1976 when he acted as National Security Adviser, whether directly or through his numerous acolytes. Although he first came to prominence in a Democratic administration, he was the handpicked choice of David Rockefeller, a Republican, and himself was one of several key foreign policy architects to endorse Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George Bush Senior in 1988. Additionally, Clinton's Secretary of State in his second term, Madeleine Albright, was an intern for and votary of Brzezinski, and current National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is an acknowledged disciple. Having said all that, Brzezinski's influence may at any given time and in relation to a given region be predominant, but is hardly exclusive. In The Grand Chessboard, for example, he summarily dismisses Great Britain as a no longer viable world player, an opinion many power brokers in Washington and Brussels would take issue with. Also, in his chapters on the 'Eurasian Continent' in which he starkly excoriates Russia as being culturally, politically and otherwise inferior (even twice employing the expression Petrine Western Christianity so there would be no doubt about what he means by Europe - and civilization in general), and openly calling for its effective dismantling into three geographic entities, he counterpoises China as a world player who, with the U.S., would supplant former Russian influence in Central and South Asia. All current indications are that the Bush administration is hardly inclined toward this policy. Lastly, Brzezinski's at times cryptic but nevertheless clear references to the Middle East suggests he's at loggerheads with the Bush administration foreign policy 'grey eminences' Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. So there are real differences in approach, both in degree and in essence, among U.S. and general Western/NATO governing elites concerning certain regional and broader global objectives, strategies, divisions of labor and short, intermediate and long term strategies, but they appear to be united in far more than what divides them. And the role assigned to Germany, as the stationing of its military forces in as many as eight or nine countries abroad attests to, is not to be ignored or underestimated, particularly in what not accidentally is increasingly referred to by the German word Mitteleuropa. Stayed tuned. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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