Strategic Vision by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780465029556
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2012-02-08T04:40:40+00:00

4: THE UNCOMMON GLOBAL COMMONS

The global commons, those areas of the world that are shared by all states, can be reduced to two main sets of global concerns: the strategic and the environmental. The strategic commons include the sea and air, space, and cyberspace domains, as well as the nuclear domain as it pertains to controlling global proliferation. The environmental commons include the geopolitical implications of managing water sources, the Arctic, and global climate change. In these areas America, thanks to its near global hegemonic status, has had in recent years the opportunity to shape what has been called the “new world order.” However, while American participation and, very often, American leadership have been essential to reforming and protecting the global commons, the United States has not always been on the front lines of progress. America, like any other great power, tried to construct a world that first and foremost benefited its own development even though during the twentieth century the United States at times was more idealistically motivated than previous dominant states in history.

Today the world’s emerging powers—China, India, Brazil, and Russia—are playing a more integral role in this global management process. An American-European consensus or an American-Russian consensus alone cannot effectively dictate the rules of the commons. These new players are—though slowly—rising, necessitating a larger consensus group in securing and reforming the global commons. Nonetheless, American participation and co-leadership remains essential to solving new and old challenges.

The strategic commons will likely be the area most impacted by the shifting paradigm of global power, as relates to both the gradual growth in the capabilities and activism of emerging powers like China and India and the potential decline of American primacy. The sea and air, space, and cyberspace central to every country’s national interest are dominated for the most part by America. In the coming years, however, they will become increasingly crowded and competitive as the power and national ambitions of other major states expand, and overall global power disperses.

Because control over the strategic commons is based on material advantages, as other nations grow their military capacities they will necessarily challenge the omnipresent position of the United States, in hopes to replace the United States as regional power broker. This competition could easily lead to miscalculation, less effective management, or a nationalistic territorial interstate rivalry in the strategic commons. China, for example, sees its surrounding waters as an extension of its territory. It considers most of the disputed islands there to be its own, and China has focused on developing naval capabilities aimed at denying America access to the South and East China Seas in order to protect those claims and solidify its regional position. Moreover, China has recently escalated disagreements over the limits of its territorial waters and over the ownership of the Senkaku, Paracel, and Spratly Islands into international disputes. Russia has also recently decided to make the navy its highest military priority, heavily increasing the funding for its Pacific Fleet. India too continues to expand its naval capabilities in the Indian Ocean.

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