Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-First Century

Although I have never been anything of a Brzezinski-admirer, I cannot help expressing my deep respect of this piece. "Out of Control" is a thoughtful and greatly written analysis of the current state of global politics, drawing on numerous past examples to make the ultimate point that the world is going out of control due to a multitude of reasons, and unless urgent measures are taken to prevent such developments, the most dismal misgivings of mankind may come true. If you don't feel intimidated by Brzezinki's language and style at the very beginning of the book, you'll probably enjoy it quite a lot.Brzezisnki starts with a ghastly overview of the world's (read Europe's) 20th century, figuratively depicting it as the century of "megadeaths and metamyths." He occasionally breaks his typical dry academic style to make a number of strong emotional points, which in a way distinguishes "Out of Control" from anything else I have read by him. Nazism and Communism, Hitler and Stalin, are depicted as monstrous as one may expect them to be, and by doing so Mr. Brzezinski prepares the ground for his further claims that humanity is at peril.As one can rightfully expect him to do, Zbigniew Brezinski does not fail to discuss widely America and its role in current international politics. But this time he not only points out America's supremacy, but also pinpoints a number of fundamental drawbacks and faults of American cultural and social life, the grass-root debasement of principles and values, as well as certain economic weaknesses which might ulimately take global leadership out of US hands. The most seroius concerns, however, are raised not just by America's inability to tackle its economic problems and thus its failure to stand firmly in a world of ever rising significance of the markets, but rather by its decreasing ability to provide global leadership and contribution in the creation of globally shared set of values. And, what is even worse, at this precise moment there is no viable alternative to this; no other power is ripe enough to bear the challenges of such a burden. Given that America's own society is gradually degrading, driven by omnipresent and omnipowerful consumerist culture, it is hard to believe that America can offer universally valid human values, which might evetually lead to a "clash of civilizations" (to use Huntington's term). In light of the September 11 events, one may only admire Brzezisnki's tremendous scope of political insight. Consistent with the above, "Out of Control" is also interesting in that it provides a profound discussion of the basic philosphical stives of modern man: who am I, where do I come from, where am I going? Brezisnki correctly points out that "for mankind the gap between enhanced expectations and actual capabilities may have never been as great as it is today." Modernization has increasingly being causing frustration of individuals, which in turn produces aggression. This is what ultimately might lead to a w

This is a good book, by the Polish-born national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, who called him "Zbig." We'll just say Z. Z has a great summary of the essentially religious nature of communism, and opens with a great, nearly Solzhenitsyn-esque sweeping condemnation of the whole communist enterprise, ending with a math exercise of all the people who have been killed by communism. Now that communism is flying apart, he previews some of the challenges facing the world, focusing on what Z refers to as the "oblong" of instablility covering the Middle East on the West, and swinging South and East to cover the areas including Armenia and the various "Stan" countries around there, Iraq, Iran, and East to India. It is here, says Z, that the first Post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki nuclear weapons will probably be used.He also meditates on the challenges posed by genetic engineering.Zbig is a serious guy, as he implies by informing us that the book's introduction was written in Northeast Harbor, ME, which gives away the Rockefeller antecedents to his career, and achieves harmonic convergence with the John McCloy-esque brand of service-provider to the establishment.This book came out almost the same time as Bill Clinton's "health security card" State of the Nation address, and to me, this highlighted the essential role that Zbig has played in helping us to realize the relative triteness of so much domestic U.S. political pandering (especially by Democrats like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton) compared to the harrowing problems facing us and everyone else internationally. Zbig's particular tragedy was having to mount his platform of international advice-giving at the pleasure of these destructive, immature half-statesmen who generally made the world more dangerous by ignoring or talking past real problems.