Executive Times
		2007 Book Reviews
		Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Rating:			***
		(Recommended)
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	Incisive With somewhat even-handed swipes at Clinton and both Bushes, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski delivers an incisive critique of American foreign policy in his new book, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower. Those three presidents squandered global leadership opportunities that the end of the Cold War offered. Brzezinski wastes no words and pulls no punches in saying what went wrong. He lays out a path to carefully set things on a better course, and somberly concludes that we won’t get the luxury of a third chance to get this right. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of Chapter 3, “Original Sin (and the Pitfalls of Conventional Imagination)” pp. 45-48: Today we have entered an era when progress will be based on the interests of all of mankind. And awareness of this requires that world policy, too, should be determined by placing the values of all mankind first. . .Further world progress is possible now only through the search for a consensus of all mankind, in movement towards a new world order. MIKHAIL GORBACHEV, speech before the U.N. General Assembly, December 7, 1988 A new partnership of nations has begun, and we stand today at a unique and extraordinary moment. . . Out of these troubled times. . . a new world order can emerge. . . in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony. GEORGE H. W. BUSH, speech before a joint session of Congress, September11, 1990 The “New World Order” became President George H. W. Bush’s trademark—the oft cited definition of his world vision. But the phrase was neither his own nor an accurate characterization of his foreign policy stewardship. In a speech to Congress proclaiming his commitment to “a new world order,” Bush, not exactly giving credit where it was due, confided that “this is the vision I shared with President Gorbachev” when the two had met weeks earlier. But Gorbachev had used the phrase well before that. Bush I was not a visionary but a skilled practitioner of power politics and traditional diplomacy in an untraditional age. Lacking a historical imagination, he appropriated Gorbachev’s slogan but never seriously sought to implement it. The Bush I presidency coincided with cascading upheavals throughout Eurasia. Several crises were either ongoing or erupting throughout that vast continent, which over the previous four decades had been the principal arena for the grand strategic rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. That rivalry involved confrontations along three strategic fronts: in the west defined by NATO, in the east by the demarcation line dividing Korea and by the Formosa Straits, and in the south, in the Persian Gulf region, by the proclamation of the Carter Doctrine in reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. These fault lines were now being outflanked by rising political, ethnic, and religious unrest in the Balkans, the Middle East, East Asia, and especially within the Soviet bloc itself. In responding to these continent-wide upheavals, Bush showed both his strengths and limitations. He proved to be a superb crisis manager but not a strategic visionary He handled the collapse of the Soviet Union with aplomb and mounted an international response to Saddam Hussein’s aggression with impressive diplomatic skill and military resolve. But he did not translate either triumph into an enduring historic success. America’s unique political influence and moral legitimacy were not strategically applied to either transform Russia or pacify the Middle East. In fairness to Bush, no U.S. president since the end of World War II had to confront such intensive and extensive global turmoil. Fortunately Bush was experienced and knowledgeable and thus did not need a learning curve. He was well-known to most foreign statesmen and generally respected. He quickly fashioned his foreign policy team and took charge. Whatever the subsequent reservations regarding his legacy, he made good choices for his principal foreign counsellors. He picked individuals who were close to him, followed his leadership, could work as a team, and accepted a basic division of labor. The national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, served as the inside presidential counselor and friend of the Bush family while the secretary of state, James Baker, acted as the reliable outside negotiator. Bush clearly was the manager of U.S. foreign policy. Strategic decisions flowed down from the top, not up from the NSC staff or the State or Defense Departments. Bush worked in close consultation primarily with three key top-level advisers (the two mentioned above plus Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney), all of whom he had known personally for some time. But while consulting with them, and occasionally even bringing in outsiders for a one-on-one discussion in the Oval Office (I was invited to give advice on the Soviet Union and Poland), Bush was without question the primus inter pares and the final, well-informed, confident decision maker. The NSC system was smooth, focused, hierarchically clear, and responsive to a truly unprecedented set of historically major upheavals. The world the Bush team faced was coming asunder, and a definable and historically comprehensible era was coming to an end. But the right course to pursue was not self-evident. Bush needed to define his priorities, look beyond just today and tomorrow, be clear about his sense of direction, and act accordingly This he never quite did. He focused primarily on the delicate task of peacefully managing the dismantling of the Soviet empire and then on cutting Saddam Hussein’s excessive ambitions clown to size. He brilliantly achieved both but exploited neither. The progressive fragmentation of the Soviet Union came to a head roughly at the midpoint of the Bush presidency, in December 1991. That date marks the onset of U.S. global supremacy. But the event was preceded and followed by mounting turmoil throughout the Soviet bloc. Any policy response to that turmoil was complicated by the violence and political upheavals erupting outside the Soviet sphere, in other parts of Eurasia. Whether you agree or disagree with what Brezezinski’s analysis and advice, reading Second Chance will encourage you to think about changes to our foreign policy. Steve Hopkins, November 20, 2007
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