By QV

Part III
 

In Zbigniew Brzezinski 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and It’s Geostrategic Imperatives:”It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and integrated Eurasian geo-strategy is therefore the purpose of this book.
For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia…. America’s global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained. “ In that context, how America ‘manages’ Eurasia is critical. Eurasia is the globe’s largest continent and is geopolitically axial. A power that dominates Eurasia would control two of the world’s three most advanced and economically productive regions. A mere glance at the map also suggests that control over Eurasia would almost automatically entail Africa’s subordination, rendering the Western Hemisphere and Oceania geopolitically peripheral to the world’s central continent. About 75 per cent of the world’s people live in Eurasia, and most of the world’s physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world’s GNP and about three-fourths of the world’s known energy resources.The emergence of China and other much smaller Asian powers over the past two decades since the end of the Cold war has challenged US hegemony over the Indian Ocean for the first time since the beginning of the Cold War.  

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Confronting China, like any other polarizing initiative, is a self-reinforcing policy, creating its own momentum out of fear, self-interest, and escalating contingency planning.Logically, the strategic and diplomatic pivot into Asia requires that the United States field a credible military deterrent in case things with China don’t go well. To this end, the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment came up with a gargantuan war plan – AirSea Battle – based on the worst-case scenario.And by worst case: the People’s Liberation Army destroys US military assets in the Pacific by sneak attack and the US is forced to engage in an enormous counteroffensive against targets across China to regain the upper hand.  

Part III coming.
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