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The consequences of the end of the cold war forinternational securityDr Zbigniew Brzezinski aa Center for Strategic and International Studies , Washington, DCPublished online: 02 May 2008.

To cite this article: Dr Zbigniew Brzezinski (1991) The consequences of the end of the cold war for international security, TheAdelphi Papers, 32:265, 3-17, DOI: 10.1080/05679329108449071

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The Consequences of theEnd of the Cold War forInternational SecurityDR ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

The point of departure for a consideration of the consequences of theend of the Cold War must be a brief recapitulation of the repercussionsof the Cold War itself for international security.

Its principal consequences can be briefly summarized as havinginvolved three elements:

- first, the unprecedented polarization of world politics around twoideologically and geopolitically hostile superpowers - each sup-ported by a cluster of dependent allies or reluctant satellites,respectively - and with both sides seeking geostrategic preponder-ance in Eurasia;

- second, the tendency for regional military conflicts to escalate intosuperpower political contests, thus inflating the stakes involved insuch regional conflicts, while paradoxically containing their explos-ive potential;

- third, the pervasive danger - and public fear - that superpower con-tests might someday get out of control, precipitating a globalnuclear disaster. The Cold War was thus viewed as the potential pre-cursor, indeed, as the potential catalyst, of a 'hot war'.

The end of the Cold War has obviously altered that situation. How-ever, it is not only the end of the war itself, but also the way in whichit ended that is germane to any serious assessment of the impact of thecessation of hostilities on international security.

The Cold War ended in a lukewarm peace, in contrast to the 'coldpeace' that usually follows a hot war. There was no act of capitulation,as in Compiegne in 1918 or in Rheims in 1945. Precisely because theCold War did end peacefully, both the victors and the vanquishedshared an interest in obscuring the fact that it did, in fact, end in a vic-tory. Nonetheless, the Paris conference of November 1990, a scene ofEast-West reconciliation, was in effect the ratification of the geopoliti-cal and ideological victory of the West.

It follows, therefore, that the end of this conflict, particularly its one-sided outcome, has drastically altered the three central securityconsequences of the Cold War:

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- first, polarization has given way to a condition of preponderanceby a single power on the world scene, although it must be hastilyadded that this condition occurs in a setting of far greater diffusionof economic power and of political pluralism than one might expectin a hegemonic situation;

- second, regional conflicts are now decoupled from the earlier link-age with superpower rivalry. Regional conflicts may now be glo-bally less critical but, conversely, they may be freer to escalate tohigher levels of violence;

- third, public political attention is likely to shift to other aspects ofinternational security - aspects perhaps better characterized asissues involving 'global well-being', such as poverty,underdevelopment and domestic instability.

The above, however, merely describes the obvious external manifes-tations of what is undeniably a major change in the nature of inter-national security. To grasp fully the meaning of that change and tocomprehend its longer-range policy implications, one must under-stand that the Cold War's end marks this century's third grand trans-formation of the organizing structure and of the motivating spirit ofglobal politics.

The first two great transformations did not enhance internationalsecurity. Will the third do so? The catalyst for the third transformation- as just noted - is the success of the West and, more specifically, of theUnited States, in the recently ended Cold War. Much, therefore,depends on the geostrategic implications for the future that are nowdrawn from the conclusion of the Cold War, especially by America andits principal partners in that prolonged engagement.1

The three grand transformationsThe first transformation was generated by the collapse of Europe's bal-ance of power and, thus, of Europe's decisive position in the world.That balance had been sustained by several Europe-centred, but globe-spanning empires. Dominant worldwide and conservative in spirit,the European system - in existence since 1815 - eventually collapsedbecause it was neither able to assimilate the rise of the national powerof Germany, nor to contain the centrifugal forces of rising chauvinism.The first 'world' war was, in reality, the last European war fought byglobally significant European powers.

World War I gave rise to an abortive attempt to organize Europe andthus, indirectly, the international system as a whole, on the basis of anew principle: that of the supreme primacy of the nation-state, withnationalism fuelling political emotions. The result was a massive fail-ure. The new European order was too precarious to survive for long.With the territorial imperative igniting interstate conflicts, and withweak nation-states dotting the map of the new Europe, it was only aquestion of time before a new eruption occurred. Germany was again

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the precipitator, although not entirely the root cause, of the resultingexplosion.

World War II, in reality the first truly global war, completedEurope's historical suicide. In the course of it, Europe ceased to be theeffective centre of world politics and became instead the criticaltheatre of a global competition waged by two powerful extra-Europeanstates: Both of them realized that geostrategic control over Europewould be tantamount to eventual control over Eurasia, and controlover Eurasia would yield global preponderance. Accordingly, through-out the resulting 'cold war', Europe was for each of them the centralstake - and thus Europe, instead of being the subject, now became theobject of a global contest.

This century's second great transformation of world politics - likethe first - also failed to enhance genuine international security. The45-year-long conflict between the two superpowers entailed, first of all,enormous risks. With ideological hostility intensifying their arms raceand with their arms possessing for the first time a lethal capacity on aglobally devastating scale, their rivalry was enormously costly in econ-omic terms and potentially devastating beyond comprehension.

Ultimately, the United States was successful: first, in deterring the Sov-iet Union from gaining preponderance in Eurasia and, second, in dis-crediting its ideology and in exhausting it economically. Belated effortsby the Soviet leadership to set in motion a process of domestic renewalcreated openings for intensifying challenges to its control over vassalstates. The crisis of power in the Kremlin and the sense of historical fail-ure of communism eventually caused the Soviet empire to disintegrate.

The Cold War thus ended without a hot war. In so doing, it gener-ated fundamental changes in two critical dimensions of world affairs:the geostrategic and the philosophical. In Eurasia, Soviet power notonly shrank back to its frontiers of 1940, but is now being challengedeven within its own borders. Indeed, the future survival of the Sovietsystem itself is now in doubt. Moreover, a united Germany is now inNATO, non-communist East European governments are cravingmembership not only of the EC, but of NATO as well, and a politicallyindependent China is making steady progress in its pragmatic econ-omic modernization. Geostrategically, far from subjugating Eurasia,the Soviet Union is now on the defensive within it.

Moreover, the philosophical tenor of our time is now dominated byWestern concepts of democracy and the free market. This is not to saythat such concepts are being successfully implemented in the post-communist states, but it is to assert that they represent today's pre-vailing wisdom. The competing notions of Marxism, not to speak ofits Leninist-Stalinist offshoot, once so intellectually dominant, aregenerally discredited.

It follows that the end of the Cold War - and particularly its ratherone-sided geostrategic and philosophical outcome - has direct conse-quences for this century's third grand transformation of world poli-

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tics. If the first transformation can be said to have been fuelled bynationalist aspirations within a Europe no longer capable of dominat-ing the world, but still capable of disrupting it, and the secondinvolved an ideologically intensified global contest between two non-European superpowers, the structure and the spirit of the third trans-formation are being increasingly shaped by the political and philo-sophical influence of the successful Western coalition.

In the course of the Cold War, that coalition acquired a comprehen-sive institutional character, embracing not only America and West-ern Europe, but increasingly Japan as well. Considerations of secur-ity, a shared interest in economic growth based on free world trade, acommitment to democratic policy-making and the impact of moderncommunications drove the coalition towards increasingly institution-alized co-operation. As a result, in its internal relations the successfulcoalition, increasingly came to manifest a pattern of conduct motiv-ated by what might be broadly (and somewhat clumsily) described asfunctionally pragmatic transnationalism.

Undoubtedly, important residues both of nationalism and of ideol-ogy continue to surface in the conduct of affairs even within thecoalition {and much more so in the world at large). But these impulsestend to be constrained by pragmatic considerations focused on themaximization of collective security and on the promotion of an openinternational trading system. Moreover, for the average citizen, theimperatives of consumption are now more important than those of ter-ritory or doctrine. Neither the desire for complete national indepen-dence nor ideological self-righteousness is the dominant motivationshaping the coalition's public opinion. As a result, functional pragma-tism, as well as transnational institution-building, generally tend todominate policy-making within the democratic West.

In the process, international politics - the interaction and struggleamong nation-states - are being transformed into a more organic pro-cess of global politics. That process tends to blur the distinctionbetween domestic and foreign priorities. It enhances the importance ofinternal economic and political well-being in determining the conductand the relative importance of individual states on the world arena.With nuclear weapons inhibiting the recourse to war among the lead-ing powers, global politics is becoming in some ways similar toAmerican urban centres: a mixture of interdependence and inequality,with violence concentrated in the poorer segments of society. Today,on the global scale, war has become a luxury that only the poor nationscan afford.

New threats to international securityTraditionally, threats to international security have been defined interms of state-to-state relations. This was especially the case in the agein which the nation-state was the principal vessel of decisive politicalaction. However, in the emerging age of organic global politics it is just

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as likely that major threats could originate from within states, eitherthrough civil conflicts or because of the increased technologicalsophistication of terrorist acts.

The character of the security challenges now facing the global com-munity was dramatically defined by Jacques Delors, in his importantaddress in March 1991 to the HSS: 'All around us, naked ambition,lust for power, national uprisings and underdevelopment are combin-ing to create potentially dangerous situations, containing the seeds ofdestabilization and conflict, aggravated by the proliferation ofweapons of mass destruction'. That general description could beamplified by a long list of specific problems, some of them surfacingbecause of the end of the Cold War, some involving long-lastingregional conflicts, some being the legacies of imperialism, some likelyto rise because of the emergence of new regional powers, someinherent in the inequality and poverty of the human condition - madeworse by the population explosion - and all of them made potentiallymore lethal because of the inevitable continued spread of weapons ofmass destruction.

In these complex and dynamic circumstances, much depends onwhether the pragmatic transnationalism of the Cold War's successfulcoalition will become not only the defining, but also the enduring sub-stance of this century's third transformation of global politics. Muchhinges on the way that four large structural dilemmas — each of centralrelevance to international security and each also a consequence of theend of the Cold War — are eventually resolved. The dilemmas are:

- first, how will Europe eventually define itself — as a truly EuropeanEurope on a supranational basis, probably deeper before becomingwider, or as a Europe of closely co-operating states, perhaps widerbefore deeper? Which is more likely to enhance global security andwhich should America favour?

- two, how will the Soviet Union be transformed? Is its preservationin a reformed mode — for the sake of'stability' — desirable from thestandpoint of international security, or is its progressive but funda-mental transformation ultimately the safest path towardsenhanced international security?

- third, how will the Pacific region organize itself? Should the USremain decisively involved in the security arrangements of theregion, or should Japan be encouraged to assume the pre-eminentrole, consistent with its economic power? If Japan is to be so encour-aged, how will this impact on regional security and, most notably,what is China's posture likely to be as a result?

- the fourth structural dilemma centres on the Middle East. Can theUnited States, now so deeply absorbed in the Middle East's complexproblems, afford not to promote energetically a framework of secur-ity and accommodation, or are the region's problems so intractablethat the wiser course dictates a policy of cautious diplomacy? Which

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is preferable from the standpoint of international security andAmerica's capacity to contribute?

The answers to these questions will go a long way towards denningeither a system that is capable of containing and mitigating the newthreats to global security, or in yielding to a condition of intensifyingglobal disorder. Each issue involves a series of critical and complexpolicy dilemmas. A positive development in the case of all — or, at theminimum, in at least three of the four — would represent a major con-tribution to the emergence of politically and economically stabilizingzones of international co-operation, thereby enhancing the scope ofinternational security and reducing to a tolerable level the inevitablepresence on the world scene of some degree of violence and conflict.

Defining EuropeOf special relevance here is the fact that the international landscape,specifically the distribution of global power, is being significantlyaltered by the acceleration in the processes of Europe's unification.The end of the division of Germany - clearly, the most significant geo-political change produced by the end of the Cold War - has had thesomewhat unexpected effect of actually spurring the West Europeans(save for the British) into adopting a more ambitious timetable, notonly for economic integration, but also for the political, and eventuallymilitary, integration of their portion of the continent. Wisely, the Ger-mans themselves took the lead in this acceleration, strongly sup-ported by the French. Their hope is that by the end of the decade,Western Europe will be emerging on the global scene as an increasinglysingle-minded and purposeful player.

However, difficult debates regarding Europe's internal organizationand its external boundaries are likely to dominate Europe's outlookthroughout much of this decade. Two major visions of Europe's futureare currently colliding, and America will at some point have to make aclear choice between them. One vision was eloquently articulated byJacques Delors in his previously mentioned address. He posed in it thecentral question: 'What destiny are we proposing to the people of Eur-ope? What destiny and what ambition?'

His answer was clear-cut. It should be an integrated Europe, 'a com-munity based on the union of peoples and the association of nation-states pursuing common objectives and developing a Europeanidentity'. Such a Europe should, therefore, have its own defence pol-icy, a policy that would represent 'the second pillar of the AtlanticAlliance' with the United States. The EC would thus be the political, aswell as economic, framework for the expression of a European identitythat is comprehensive and increasingly organic.

The alternative vision was forcefully defined by Margaret Thatcherin a speech to the Heritage Foundation in Washington on 8 March1991. Thatcher warned that: 'If a European superstate were to be

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forged, it would almost certainly develop interests and attitudes atvariance with those of America. We would thereby move from a stableinternational order with the United States in the lead to a moredangerous world of new competing power blocs. This would be in noone's interest, least of all America's'. Accordingly, she expressed anexplicit preference for 'a Europe of nation-states, a Europe that is openas soon as possible to participation of those European states currentlyoutside of the European Community, notably the democratizing statesof post-communist East Europe'.

Inherent in these two competing visions are sensitive security issues.Two stand out: first, what is the scope of the West's security perimeterin Europe; second, what is the proper American role in Europeansecurity? As Eastern Europe democratizes itself — at first, in the morepromising Polish-Czech-Hungarian triangle — NATO's security per-imeter is already beginning implicitly to include these countries.

As that security perimeter shifts eastward, and as European econ-omic integration moves forward, further dynamics in favour of pol-itical and military integration are likely to be generated. Europe willcertainly need political cohesion and a joint security policy to dealwith its potential ethnic or regional problems. It may even chosoe toadopt the European equivalent of the Monroe Doctrine in that regard,and, in this connection, the energetic response of the EC to theYugoslav crisis represents an important and positive precedent.

Such a development would be consistent with the American desirefor a genuinely pluralistic and self-governing world. A Europe with adefined military and political identity would certainly continue tohave an interest in a strategic alliance with the United States. Thatalliance would be the guarantee against any potential revival in theSoviet military threat and would serve as the basis for joint responses— if joint interests are involved — to out-of-area threats.

For this reason it is historically unwise for America to opposegreater European military integration, especially through the linkageof the EC and the WEU. Economic unity cannot be insulated fromeventual political and military unity. Official US insistence on pre-serving NATO as the central military decision-making body seems toindicate an American preference for a Europe that still remains a Eur-ope of nation-states, contrary to American rhetoric about support forEuropean unity.

The troubling inconsistency between the American desire that Eur-ope be more active, not only in safeguarding itself, but also inassuming out-of-area roles, and the American insistence that the ECrefrain from becoming the mechanism for defining Europe's securitypolicy has another negative aspect. It ignores the historicallysignificant reality that a more united Europe would be also a Europemore capable of absorbing and assimilating Germany. That wouldmake unlikely any potential German-Russian manoeuvres that, inturn, could revive old European insecurities. One cannot dismiss the

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possibility — however remote today — that in a fluid Europe and in amessy Soviet Union, both Berlin and Moscow could again someday betempted.

A more self-reliant and reliable Europe, in which America maintainsonly limited ground forces, but which it backs with its strategic deter-rent, would also be less vulnerable to the negative spillover effects —both social and political — of the deepening Soviet crisis. Theimplosion of the Soviet Union is almost certain to continue. A long-term decomposition of the Soviet political and economic system isunder way.

The transformation of the Soviet UnionThe national crisis within the Soviet Union introduces a particularlyemotional complication, making it all the more difficult to construct anall-union framework conducive to political compromise and congenialto rapid economic recovery. More likely is a protracted period of uncer-tainty, as the Soviet Union is transformed - both through evolutionand periodic turbulence — into something eventually quite different.

During this period of change, the Soviet geopolitical relationshipwith Eastern Europe may be quite unstable, with fears and anxieties onboth sides. The East Europeans fear both Soviet power and Sovietweakness. They know that not all Soviet leaders have become rec-onciled to the geopolitical loss of Eastern Europe. They are con-cerned that the continuing security vacuum in the region could againbe filled by Soviet power. East Europeans follow carefully Sovietinternal debates about Soviet policy towards the region, and they arenot reassured by all they read.

Basically, two lines of thought have emerged in Moscow regardingEastern Europe. Some commentators have been urging a policy con-sistent with the 'new thinking' that is said to characterize MikhailGorbachev's foreign policy, viewing Eastern Europe, and especiallyPoland, 'as the door-step to the West. . . Moscow must avoid usingforce and seek compromises as it does in Washington, Bonn andParis'.2 However, more frequently there have been charges that: 'Sov-iet policy in Eastern Europe is operating without a precise strategicconcept, without a clear definition of aims', which is not only facilitat-ing the spread of Western influence, but is even permitting the newEast European leaders to engage in activities aimed at 'the USSR'ssocialist perspective and existence as an integral state'.3

These public debates mirror the more serious disagreements withinthe Soviet Union regarding relations with Eastern Europe. By andlarge, the Soviet Foreign Ministry reflected the more benign attitudetowards changes in Eastern Europe. In contrast, a directive of theInternational Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU,issued in January 1991, urged the use of political and economic lever-age ('energy exports to Eastern Europe must be viewed as an import-

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ant instrument of our strategy in the region') to restore some degree ofSoviet influence.

Even a cursory glance at a map suggests that the main thrust of anySoviet effort to redress the geopolitical situation is likely to be directedat Poland. From the Soviet point of view, the restoration of some degreeof control over Poland would greatly reduce the momentum of the cen-trifugal forces now at work in Lithuania, Byelorussia and the Ukraine.

But it is not only the reapplication of Soviet power that worries theEast Europeans: Soviet weakness is another source of concern. Exist-ing trade patterns have already been unilaterally severed by the Sov-iets, with a very adverse impact on East European economies. TheEast Europeans fear that an internal catastrophe in the Soviet Unioncould precipitate massive migration to the West, on a scale perhaps ofeven as many as several million refugees. The fragile East Europeanstates could not handle such a situation.

One must expect, therefore, considerable uncertainty as regards theSoviet relationship with Eastern Europe. This is essentially why the EastEuropean governments have been favouring a policy of some Westernaid for the Soviet Union, but aid which also deliberately facilitates therestoration of disrupted trade flows between East Europe and the SovietUnion. This is also why, until some alternative emerges, NATO, with itsAmerican presence, has come to be viewed by the East Europeans astheir primary source of security. For the East Europeans, the CSCE -given its rule of unanimity, which places on the same level such entitiesas the Soviet Union and Monaco - could become an effective securitysystem only when insecurity no longer exists.

The foregoing underlines the shared stake both of the East and theWest in the peaceful and stable transformation - and not just reform -of the Soviet Union. It is in the collective interest of the West, and ofinternational security more generally, that Western policy has as itsstrategic objective the progressive strengthening of the political andeconomic power of the various Soviet national republics, thereby gen-erating a dynamic process that will eventually replicate the pluralismthat already characterizes the West. Ultimately, the Soviet Unionmight thus evolve into a looser confederation, or a league of sovereignstates, with associate status in specific security and economic mattersfor those Soviet republics that opt for complete independence.

In a Soviet confederation, the existing Soviet Army, a hugemultinational establishment based on compulsory military service,might gradually be transformed into a smaller, professional militaryformation, presumably subject to the confederal government. How-ever, some of the republics have indicated that they might choose tomaintain separate national conventional forces, perhaps of the USNational Guard type.4 The confederal government would also be likelyto exercise control over the existing Soviet strategic forces, probablystaffed in the main by Russian nationals, but there would be anarrangement - perhaps as in NATO - for a republican role in the

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decision-making regarding the use of such forces. In this fashion, theenormous Soviet nuclear arsenal would eventually be decoupled fromthe single most powerful conventional army in the world, therebysomewhat mitigating the threat that Soviet military power still posesto the West.

Clearly, any such prospect is still far off. Movement in that directioncould be derailed by a sudden reversal in internal Soviet politics,including some belated attempt at centralized dictatorship. Moreover,even sustained movement is likely to be subject to periodic halts, somereversals, much friction and some turbulence. Nonetheless, the benignscenario outlined above - which can no longer be relegated to therealm of political science fiction - is already being discussed in theSoviet Union. It therefore reinforces the proposition that the vision ofa transformed Soviet Union should serve as a strategic beacon forWestern policy. And a politically united Europe, together with Amer-ica, can assist more deliberately such a peaceful transformation thana Europe that itself remains susceptible to internal national rivalries.

Relations in the PacificThe third structural challenge to global security in the post-Cold Warera involves the Far East. Irrespective of what actually transpires inthe foreseeable future in the Soviet Union, shared security concernsare now less likely to mitigate the intensifying American-Japaneseeconomic rivalry. A more deliberate effort, therefore, will be needed todefine the substance of a genuine partnership between America andJapan. Fortunately, on both sides of the Pacific there is a growing rec-ognition of the emerging economic-financial interdependence andinterpenetration of the two economies.

In the meantime, the security question in that relationship will haveto be addressed within a strategic perspective that is sensitive tobroader regional dynamics. The Pacific region, although economicallynow the most vital sector of the global economy, lacks any viablesecurity structure. That absence was not a major problem as long as thecentral security issue was the American-Soviet rivalry. However, inthe near future, China, given its relatively successful economic trans-formation, is likely to emerge as a geopolitical power contender in thePacific region. This alone is bound to have a major impact on theregion, potentially prompting a significant shift in the Asian powerbalance away from US and/or Japanese preponderance.

Indeed, it is quite likely that, within a decade or two, the security ofthe Far East will be as dramatically transformed by the emergence of amore powerful China as the security of Europe has been transformedby the fading power of the Soviet Union. If present trends continue, bythe year 2010 China will join the United States, the EC and Japan asone of the world's four leading economic powers. It may even make itspolitical and military weight in world affairs felt earlier - a prospectthat has to be taken into account.

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In any case, a much more complex interplay, involving not onlyJapan and China, but other regional players too, is already in the pro-cess of gestation. A unified Korea, for example, could even be anuclear power. Indonesia is likely to be more assertive in South-eastAsia. India clearly is already a regional hegemon in South Asia, as wellas a nuclear power. It is unclear whether in the years to come Indiamight suffer from significant internal insecurity or whether it mightseek to play a more assertive role in a wider Asian context. Moreover,the list of potential interstate as well as internal conflicts in Asia cer-tainly far exceeds that of Europe.

The United States is determined to remain a Pacific power, with itsforces projected to the edges of the Asian mainland. Yet, at the sametime, the United States desires Japan to assume a larger military role onthe grounds that this behooves its standing as an economic giant and asan emerging global power. The longer-term danger arising from suchpressures on Japan is that at some point either a serious clash betweenAmerica and Japan over US geostrategic perspectives may develop, orthat Japan, forced for the first time since World War II to define its owngeopolitical priorities, will plunge into a security role that goes farbeyond anything that the American side had actually desired.

It is, therefore, far from clear that it is truly in America's interest topressure Japan into assuming larger military responsibilities. Theproblem is likely to be compounded by increased Chinese resentmentregarding American strategy. Chinese commentaries on the 'world'sstrategic pattern' make it clear that, in its view: 'Europe is no longerthe focus of [the] world strategic pattern, while the strategic position ofthe Asia-Pacific region is rising'.5 This makes the Chinese even moreconcerned that the Asian region has not yet developed a regionalsecurity structure similar to that of Europe, one which could assimilateJapan in a manner akin to that of Germany in Europe.

The answer to the region's longer-term security dilemmas is thus notlikely to be derived from a more militarily powerful Japan nor from anAmerica permanently perched on the edge of the Asian mainland. Itcertainly is not desirable to generate a dynamic and destabilizing inter-play between a more militaristic Japan, an antagonistically assertiveChina, and a beleaguered Russia. Instead, in the wake of the Cold War,the West should exploit the opportunity to participate in shaping thenew structure of Asian security which will gradually embrace themajor powers and interested states, especially China.

Perhaps two sets of negotiations will, at some point, be needed - onepertaining to North-east Asia and the other to South-east Asia. Thefirst might focus particularly on the need to generate a four-power con-sensus on the reunification of Korea. The second might build on theagreements regarding Cambodia to create some standing consultativemachinery for the resolution of territorial and/or political conflicts.

In both cases, the point of departure for any initiative should beclose consultations and co-ordination between America and Japan. An

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enduring alliance between the two - but neither a US military protec-torate nor a regional Japanese military role - is the essential foun-dation for Asian security. Progress along these lines should permitthe progressive pull-back of American forces from forward bases in thePhilippines, Korea and eventually, perhaps, from Japan as well. Thisshould be viewed not as a symptom of American isolationism, but asconsistent with the gradual emergence on the world scene of new andwider-ranging security structures of regional self-reliance.

Peace in the Middle EastThe fourth major consequence of the Cold War's end was the freedomof action that the United States enjoyed in conducting the war againstIraq. The Soviet Union had little real choice but to play the role of abenevolent - even if eventually also of an increasingly frustrated -spectator. It was no longer America's contestant for regional influence.However, the military victory attained in that war has plunged Amer-ica into a deep, probably protracted, political and military absorptionin the Middle East's various crises.

Regional power is now concentrated at two extremes: Iran is theonly self-reliant military power in the Gulf, and Israel has no Arabmilitary match. Thus, in the Gulf, the United States will have to be theprincipal source of security. Perhaps over time a new political relation-ship with Iran can be structured, but that certainly remains an uncer-tain prospect. In the meantime, the very weakness of the Gulf Arabstates, their continued vital economic importance to the West, as wellas the unresolved legacies of the militarily decisive, but politicallyinconclusive outcome of the war against Iraq dictate the necessity of acontinued American military presence.

At one point, it was argued that the successful destruction of Iraq bya Western-Arab coalition, which enjoyed Israel's benign self-restraint,would create the preconditions for movement towards a solution ofthe Arab-Israeli conflict. That prospect now seems more doubtful.Relieved of the potential threat from Iraq, the Israelis are moreinclined to insist on their maximum objective: the permanent reten-tion of the West Bank. The Arabs, reeling from the defeat of Iraq by amassive display of American power, are in no position either to makewar or to settle with Israel largely on Israeli terms.

Accordingly, the danger is of a gridlock, but one that runs the risk ofabsorbing American attention, diverting American resources and per-haps even stalemating American diplomacy. Even though the MiddleEast is now unambiguously a US sphere of influence, the paradoxicalresult of America's military victory over Iraq might be the reduction ofits capacity to capitalize more broadly and constructively on the end ofthe Cold War to make a substantial contribution to internationalsecurity writ large.

Ultimately, the issue is that of American political will to sustain theneeded peace process. The international community basically knows

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what the interrelated agenda of peace in the Middle East involves: theshaping of a viable security framework that also constrains the inflowof arms; the implementation of UN Resolutions 242 and 338 regard-ing the Israeli-Arab conflict, including some transitional politicalstatus for the Palestinian nation; and progress towards a regional part-nership in economic development.

An assertive American effort to shape such a genuine framework ofpolitical compromise and regional security in the Middle East woulddoubtless enjoy the support of the major countries in Europe and Asia.It would be seen as in keeping with progress towards genuinelyenhanced international security.

ConclusionTo conclude, international security in the post-Cold War era is likelyto depend on the degree to which:

- Europe succeeds both in deepening its political and military unity(without too much delay), then in widening its scope;

- the transformation of the existing Soviet Union into a loose and vol-untary confederation is neither halted by a sudden throwback tocentral dictatorship nor produces violent explosions;

- movement develops in the Far East towards a regional security accom-modation that constructively engages Japan, China, the UnitedStates, perhaps the Soviet Union and some other pertinent states;

- the United States, which has become the decisive security arbiter inthe Middle East, energetically sets in motion a regional peace process.

In regard to the above issues, the American role in the years to comewill remain central. How Europe evolves will be influenced to somedegree by US policies and presence. The way in which the SovietUnion copes will be affected by the strategic design that the successfulCold War coalition adopts. How the Far East organizes itself will beconditioned by the role that the United States insists on playing. Anddevelopments in the Middle East will depend very heavily on thedegree to which Washington elects to play a passive or an active part.Indeed, the American role in helping to shape the answers will be criti-cal simply because today's global politics include only one super-power, the United States.

However, the special status afforded America as the world's onlysuperpower is threatened by its domestic shortcomings. To be sure, itwould be rash to underestimate the innate capacity of Americansociety for rapid renovation. A burst of economic and technologicalrenewal could well be sparked, thereby drastically reversing some ofthe downward trends in the country's economic indices experiencedduring the 1990s. Nonetheless, unless America pays more attention toits domestic weaknesses, a new global pecking order could begin toemerge early in the next century, in the event that the unifying Europeand/or an economically dynamic Japan were to assume large political

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16 ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI

and military responsibilities. Thus it follows that, henceforth, US pol-icy will have to strike a more deliberate balance between the globe'sneed for a continuing American commitment, the desirability of somedevolution of US regional security responsibilities and the imperativesof America's domestic renewal. This will require a more subtle Ameri-can contribution to sustaining global security than was the case dur-ing the Cold War. More emphasis will have to be placed onco-operation with genuine partners, including shared decision-makingregarding world security issues. It is also worth noting that Americaninfluence is, in fact, likely to be greater if the homeward redeploymentof some of its forces precedes - and not follows - the host countries'demand for it.

The emerging new global system thus is likely to be based neither onAmerican hegemony nor yet be derived from genuine internationalharmony. Although America is today admittedly the world's onlysuperpower, global conditions are too complex and America's dom-estic health too precarious to sustain a worldwide Pax Americana.Eventually, perhaps, a truly new world order, based on consensus, ruleof law and peaceful adjudication of disputes, may become a reality.But that day is still far off. As of now, the phrase is a slogan in search ofsubstantive meaning.

Nor is isolationism - given the emergence of the global economyand the impact of modern communications - a practical option. Thusthe real alternatives are either a world of intensifying disorder - with adivided Europe, a Soviet Union plunging into violent chaos, a Far Eastdestabilized by new power shifts, and a Middle East of continued con-flict cumulatively producing a catastrophic breakdown in globalsecurity - or an incipient global security structure, derived fromwidening and increasingly self-reliant regional co-operation, backedby selective and proportionate American commitments.

Within such a global security structure, America - even with a dim-inished military presence abroad - will still remain the principalsource of nuclear deterrence and the ultimate guarantor of the prop-osition that any disrupter of security will be faced by a dominantcoalition, in all likelihood, still led by America. At the same time,Washington will be able to focus more on the imperatives of its dom-estic renewal, thereby buttressing its long-term capacity to sustain apolicy of continued, but also more selective and proportionate, com-mitment to global security.

Notes1 The debate on this subject has beenjoined, and I have benefited from thearguments already developed by others,notably from the American vantagepoint in seminal statements by Samuel

P. Huntington and Paul Nitzerespectively. See S. P. Huntington,'America's changing strategic interests',Survival, vol. XXXIII, No. 1, Jan/Feb1991, pp. 3-17; and P. Nitze, 'America:

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an Honest Broker', Foreign Affairs, Fall,1990.2 V. Razuvayev, 'The West Begins inPoland', New Times, 12-18 February1991.3 A. Kaznacheyev, 'USSR-East Europe:Hopes and Illusions', SovetskayaRossiya, 17 April 1991.4 V. Semivolos, 'Should the Ukrainehave its Own Army?', Novoye Vremya,no. 26, June 1991, discusses in detail theproblematics of future Ukrainian armedforces, and reaches the conclusion that'taking into consideration the future

professionalization of the army and therenunciation of nuclear weapons and thecorresponding maintenance, backup, anddelivery systems, the numerical strengthof the Army will drop to 200,000 -300,000' from the approximately700,000 Ukrainians who are currentlyserving in the Soviet Army.5 Chen Xiaogong, 'The World's StrategicPattern in the 1990s', InternationalStrategic Studies, (Beijing), March1991), pp. 8-9. Chen's periodization ofchange in world affairs is in somerespects quite similar to mine.

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