Rating: 
Summary: I liked the message...
Review: I agree with just about everything the author had to say about how America needs to go about leading the world, not pushing it. However, for such a relatively short book, this wasn't the easiest book. The prose gets a little bogged down with big words and strays a little at times. Having just recently read Robert Rubin's and Madeleine Albright's memoirs (much longer works), this book only falls short in its ease of reading. However, everyone should be able to get past that and get a lot out of the ideas presented, even if you're an America First-er, you need to consider the opinion of this very intelligent and well-qualified author and give him his due.
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Summary: His Idea - Baby Steps - to Simplify His Theory of What to Do
Review: I feel like I have been on an overdose of these books just having read House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger (excellent book) - the biggest tell all blockbuster (my opinion), The Choice by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Disarming Iraq, by Hans Blix, Noam Chomsky's Hegemony of Survival, Thirty Days (about Tony Blair) by Peter Stothard, and Price of Loyalty, Paul O'Neill (excellent book), Why America Slept by Gerald Posner, Against All Eneamies by Richard Clarke, and the Rise of the Vulcans by Mann and Mann. I put together a "listmania" list of the 25 best books - the best books - mainly non political, no strong bias conservative or liberal - a spectrum of opinion when you take them all together.There is certainly a wide variety of views and all of these books are excellent. I have read and for the most part digested the views and ideas and I would strongly recommend any or all of these books to get a diverse view. One cannot begin to give these books justice in book reviews. In any case there are generally two types of books, i.e: the "gotcha" books which try to show how Bush has made errors or done something illegal such as the Craig Unger book, or the "solution books" like Brzezinski, Soros and Chomsky. Of all the "best seller" books on the market I would consider this present book by Brzezinski to be one if not the best books that deals with terrorism, the invasion of Iraq, and the future role of the US. Perhaps not the most exciting read (I think Unger's book takes that title) but still this is an excellent book. In this book he is very diplomatic in his comments of the current administration and he presents many well thought out ideas on how to deal with the Muslim countries, American demographics, how the world views the US etc. In some of the other books by say Chomsky or Soros some of the ideas are in fact quite similar to Brzezinski. Here he is also against unilateral action but he manages to calm down the rhetoric plus he suggests that some sort of world government or similar is not realistic and is many generations off. So instead of say going to the UN and supporting the UN or World Court in any absolute way he suggests shorter term goals that are a combination of working much more closely with the Europeans and then expanding that relationship later in stages (my comment baby steps). Also he seems to advocate more support for the Muslim countries to permit them to develop economically and socially. All in all a well thought out argument, it is well presented, and attempts to make the debate a little more rational. Jack in Toronto
Rating: 
Summary: Global disorder
Review: Quite a well written, but ultimately depressing book. Brzezinski argues that America needs to maintain a global domination over the world to avoid global anarchy. The trouble with this strategy is that it's ultimately unsustainable. Interventionism is preached by this so-called (in some quarters) CFR-Rockefeller mouthpiece, but Brzezinski does not give the full low-down on the methods for this. I would have liked this book to expand on several areas, most notably Russia. Quite a large amount of space is devoted to the "Greater Balkans", but there is no mention of America's role in covert action in this region, either historical or present. In a 1998 interview for French publication Le Nouvel Observateur, Brzezenski revealed that American activities in Afghanistan began 6 months prior to the Soviet invasion with the funding of opponents of the pro-Soviet regime there, and that this was done with the full knowledge that such an action might provoke a Soviet invasion. Also, in Vol 6, No 5 of Foreign Affairs (Sept-Oct 1997) in an article entitled "A Geostrategy for Eurasia", Brzezenski discusses how the world should be shaped to ensure a "benign American hegemony" and a map of "Eurasia in the 21st century" is printed showing a threefold division of a confederated Russia. None of all this makes it into this book, to its detriment. In the book Brzezinski mentions how he expects Siberia to be opened up at some point and that Russia will have difficulty defending it as it has a decreasing population. The whole book smacks of a recipe for corporations, under the cover of American intervention, probably to ensure "democracy", to muscle into countries and extract whatever goodies may be beneath the soil. The whole notion of America being some kind of standard bearer for the world is probably untenable now anyway. Brzezenski mentions "the short and decisive wars in Iraq in 1991 and 2003" that deployed "precision weaponry". Yes, right. At some point, surely, the powers that be are going to realise that this is no way to treat the planet. One thing's for sure, when the last tree is cut down/bombed and the last war is fought, then the realisation will dawn that you cannot live on money.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Look at U.S. Foreign Policy
Review: This is an interesting book about U.S. foreign policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, is a critic of the neoconservative approach to foreign policy. The neocons believe that might is right and therefore the U.S. should assert its will over the world. Brzezinski, however, favors a much more subtle approach. Brzezinski's approach is using U.S. influence to improve the world instead of bullying the rest of the world around with military might. For example, Brzezinski favors withholding U.S. aid to Israel to cause that country to withdraw from the occupied territories and recognize an independent Palestinian state. He also favors alliances with friendly regimes in the Islamic world. Brzezinski's ideas are pretty much the same as those which guided the Carter Administration. However, now that there is no such thing as either the Cold War or the Soviet Union, those ideas may very well have a better chance of succeeding. Perhaps a future president will implement Brzezinski's ideas. This is an intelligent and closely argued book. Brzezinski marshals his evidence and his arguments to a highly persuasive effect. This book also avoids the Mr. Know-It-All tone that pervades so many other books written by former government officials.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting Look at U.S. Foreign Policy
Review: This is an interesting book about U.S. foreign policy. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, is a critic of the neoconservative approach to foreign policy. The neocons believe that might is right and therefore the U.S. should assert its will over the world. Brzezinski, however, favors a much more subtle approach. Brzezinski's approach is using U.S. influence to improve the world instead of bullying the rest of the world around with military might. For example, Brzezinski favors withholding U.S. aid to Israel to cause that country to withdraw from the occupied territories and recognize an independent Palestinian state. He also favors alliances with friendly regimes in the Islamic world. Brzezinski's ideas are pretty much the same as those which guided the Carter Administration. However, now that there is no such thing as either the Cold War or the Soviet Union, those ideas may very well have a better chance of succeeding. Perhaps a future president will implement Brzezinski's ideas. This is an intelligent and closely argued book. Brzezinski marshals his evidence and his arguments to a highly persuasive effect. This book also avoids the Mr. Know-It-All tone that pervades so many other books written by former government officials.
Rating: 
Summary: More bad advice from the father of WW III
Review: When historians write about the day that WW III began, they could do worse than pick July 3, 1979, the day that Carter signed his executive order to start funding the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan at Brzezinski's urging. If there was a real beginning of the modern clash of civilizations, it began on Brzezinski and Carter's watch. While the Islamic brotherhood had been building since the 1920's, it was only when these fanatics saw a weak USA that they began to expand their hatred into the West. Once we started funding the Islamic fanatics, and once we ran from them as we did when the mullahs ordered the imprisonment of American diplomats in Iran for 444 days until Carter and ZB left office, we were in for serious problems for generations to come. But of course ZB ignores all this, and dismissed the impact of his decisions in his infamous interview with Le Nouvel Observateur in 1998 as just causing a "few stirred up Muslims" a.k.a. the Taliban and predecessor organizations to al Qaeda. Of course none of this important stuff is in this book. There has probably never been a worse foreign policy team than ZB and Carter. And now, ZB is baaaack to give us some more advice. Thankfully this book is short but it is full of the same kind of silly assumptions that led him and Carter to draw the Soviets into Afghanistan to create the "Soviet Vietnam."
We are somehow supposed to establish diplomatic counterpoints to what is really a great religious based upheaval, one that he created. ZB's assumptions that the French are going to join the Russians and the US to counteract the forces of evil unleashed upon the world when ZB and Carter opened this Pandora's Box are just plain ridiculous. France has never looked at any alliance except through its commercial interests with a short exception when it was flat on its back during WW II. Russia is not a new player on the scene, and ZB's assumptions that somehow they will align their interests to the US and the West just to make the Islamists feel better and stop the attacks is beyond idiotic. If you want to read a book that describes a situation poorly and then comes up with even worse prescriptions for fixing the wrong things, then this book is for you. I picked this up thinking that he might have learned some lessons from his mistakes, but I was wrong. How this guy can even show his face, let alone give us some more bad advice is beyond me.
Rating:
Summary: Consider this:
Review: ZB is a avowed Marxist, an economist and a Polish national. The very fact that he was our "national security advisor" during the Carter years (double digit interest rates, rampant, unchecked spread of communism in our hemisphere and elsewhere, and the Iranian Hostage crisis, to name a few SNAFUs) should be cause for alarm, not credential. He is a staunch advocate of global collectivism, regional,geopolitical arrangements that supercede sovreign interests and a weaker America subservient to the UN.
His books, including "Between Two Ages" and this one, are thinly veiled attempts to justify world socialism. I happen to know a great many Polish citizens who are simply ecstatic to be free of the yoke of Soviet influence and oppression by their own government. Not one of them are able to fully comprehend why America would ever lionize a turd like ZB. It is amazing that the only people who embrace collectivism are those who are not or will not be subject to it.
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Summary: A strategy to contain the global Balkans
Review: Zbigniew Brzezinski identifies the geopolitical Achilles' heel of the twenty-first century in an area he designates as the global Balkans-a geographical "swathe of Eurasia between Europe and the Far East," encompassing primarily the Middle East and Central Asia. "The Choice" is Mr. Brzezinski's analysis of the global Balkans coupled with his argument about what America's strategy should be in dealing with that unstable region.
Much of the argument runs on familiar territory, though Mr. Brzezinski's restatement is clear, concise, and comprehensive; but his analytical talents are employed mainly to support his central thesis in favor of a multilateral American foreign policy, rather than to offer new insights as to the nature or causes of instability in the global Balkans.
Broadly speaking, Mr. Brzezinski calls for strengthened alliances, preferably institutionalized, to contain the global Balkans. This strategy, Mr. Brzezinski maintains, has the added benefit of addressing both the sources of global instability as well as the potential power struggles in Europe and East Asia. His geopolitical mind runs much farther than the global Balkans and onto the future of the transatlantic partnership and the rise of China.
Although, Mr. Brzezinski tries to address contemporary debates, it is clear that his thinking looks much more into the future, into the potential geopolitical developments of this century. As a strategic vision, "The Choice" has the attractions of looking far ahead, while remaining well-tuned to the realities of the day.
At the same time, the book suffers from its brevity and scope-it is not rare for the reader to demand more depth and precision. Still, as a contribution to the broad strategic debate on the balance between leadership and domination, "The Choice" offers penetrating insights that policymakers can ignore only at their peril.
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