[Zbigniew Brzezinski] Toward universal political culture

WASHINGTON ― A common challenge to all of us is inherent in the ongoing transformation of global politics.

Let me begin with three broad assertions, then briefly elaborate on each of them, and conclude by making a modest proposal.

― First, global peace is threatened not by utopian fanaticism, as was the case during the 20th century, but by the turbulent complexity inherent in the volatile phenomenon of global political awakening;

― Second, comprehensive and enduring social progress is more attainable by democratic participation than by authoritarian mobilization;

― Third, in our time global stability can be promoted only by larger-scale cooperation, and not through imperial domination.

The 20th century was dominated by fanatical ideological efforts to recreate societies by brutal totalitarian methods on the basis of utopian blueprints. Twentieth century Europe knows best the human costs of such simplistic and arrogant ideological fanaticism. Fortunately, today, with the exception of some highly isolated cases, such as North Korea, it is unlikely that a new attempt at large-scale utopian social engineering could arise.

That is largely so because in the 21st century, for the first time in human history, the entire world is now politically awakened. The peoples of the world are restless, they are interconnected, they are resentful of their relative social deprivations, and they increasingly reject authoritarian political mobilization. It follows that democratic participation is in the longer run the best guarantee both of social progress and political stability.

In the global arena, however, the combination of rising populist aspirations and the inherent difficulties of shaping common global responses to political and economic crises poses the danger of international disorder to which neither Germany alone, nor Russia alone, nor Turkey alone, nor China alone, nor America alone can provide an effective response. Indeed, potential global turmoil ― coincidental with the appearance of novel threats to universal well-being and even to human survival ― can be effectively addressed only within a larger cooperative framework based on more widely shared democratic values.

The basic fact is that interdependence is not a slogan but a description of an increasingly imperative reality. America realizes that it needs Europe as a global ally, that its cooperation with Russia is of mutual and expanding benefit, that its economic and financial interdependence with rapidly rising China has a special political sensitivity, that its ties with Japan are important not only mutually but to the well-being of the Pacific region. Germany is committed to a more united Europe within the EU and to close links across the Atlantic with America, and in that context it can safely nurture mutually beneficial economic and political cooperation with Russia.

Turkey, which launched almost 100 years ago its social and national modernization with Europe largely as its model, is assuming a larger regional role as an economically dynamic and politically democratic state, while also a member of the Atlantic alliance as well as Russia’s good neighbor. And Russia, recognizing that its modernization and democratization are mutually reinforcing and vital to its important world role, also aspires to a broader collaboration with Europe, with America, and quite naturally so with its dynamic neighbor to the east, China.

The time is thus ripe for translating the values and interests that bind us together into more comprehensive ties. That requires the deliberate promotion of genuine reconciliation between historically conflicting peoples.

The EU would not exist today if it were not for the deliberate effort made by France and Germany ― not only on the official level but especially between their peoples ― to foster a genuine and deeply rooted national reconciliation. The EU could not have embraced central Europe if more recently a similar ongoing effort had not been pursued between the Germans and the Poles.

Turkey and Russia, though enemies in the past, are now good neighbors, and Turkey and the EU are engaged in complicated negotiations regarding a mutually beneficial relationship. A wider-still Europe cannot come into being without a similar and broadly gauged reconciliation between the Poles and the Russians. And an even broader cooperative framework can emerge as America and Russia expand their collaboration, taking advantage of the fact that on the people-to-people level there has never been any truly intense animus between Americans and Russians.

In any case, we need to face the reality that in the decades ahead, larger-scale cooperation between regions will be essential to global well-being.

The ongoing emergence as major players of dynamic and populated Asian states ― most notably of China, earlier of Japan, and soon of India and of Indonesia ― as well as of increasingly close Asian inter-state organizations all reflect the advantages of large-scale cooperation among the world’s regions. In fact, the more regional cooperation in Asia itself, the less likely is Asia to repeat Europe’s painful 20th century history, and the more likely is broader cooperation also between the new East and the old West.

The potential for such cooperation also suggests, if new major conflicts are averted, that in the decades ahead the now politically awakened people of the world may eventually share a universal political culture in which global cooperation will be reinforced ― though with some unavoidable local variations ― by constitutionally based democratic principles. Japan, South Korea and India provide examples of the global potential for cross-cultural democratic universality. It is timely to make note of that more hopeful prospect, especially in the face of the current inclination to engage in historical pessimism. And so it is timely also to think concretely and practically, in geopolitical terms, of how we can step by patient step advance and institutionalize such a more promising future.

By Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the national security adviser to former President Jimmy Carter. ― Ed.

(Tribune Media Services)