Sure, but check out the three minute excerpt below where Brzezinski shares his worries about the People's Liberation Army interfering in Chinese politics.
Still with me? Go here to watch the entire 20-minute interview.
A friend of a friend used to be Brzeznski's personal assistant or researcher or something in the early 90's and apparently he's known to his associates as 'Zbig,' though 'Z-small' would be a little more charmingly self-deprecating. But hey, I've never been national security advisor.
Some of the more advanced Chinese military publications occasionally do have rather strident tones. I have some times wondered weather if the Communist party begins to falter in China, whether the PLA might now become an increasingly important political institution. That could be troublesome.That sentence is full of caveats, and far to meekly worded for most of the China hawks I know. Could be troublesome? But Zbig makes this point a few times. Our relationship with China, he adamantly exclaims, "is a competition! It is a rivalry!" And "of course the United States has a role to play in Asia." Then, later:
Increasingly the official media in China talk about China as a great power; America as a declining power ... there is a triumphalist tone in at least parts of the Chinese elite which gives you food for thought.Look, Zbig is a liberal. (So am I.) No one at National Review would say, "We have to get accustomed to the idea that the 20-year-long period of total American supremacy in the world was in some sense an anomaly." Not even The New Republic would pose the radical question "Are we the only nation in the world that's entitled to have a worldwide Naval presence?"
I'm not trying to convert anyone to liberalism, of course. It's the job of the military to prepare for armed conflict, and everyone from the President on down should be increasingly worried about Chinese military strength and our increasingly apparent weaknesses. Seriously worried.
But Zbig is talking about the other side of this debate, the diplomatic side. Armed conflict with China is not inevitable. More importantly, it's in our national interest to prevent it. Because some of what Zbig says here isn't liberal philosophy, it's undeniable fact:
A great deal of stability in the world will increasingly depend on the stability and normality of the American-Chinese relationship.On Dec. 31st, 2009, I had the dubious honor or representing my ship on Shore Patrol. I was paired with an intelligence officer, an LTJG, and we spent most of the night discussing China. He had the idea (and this absolutely shocked me at the time) that if it became apparent that China was a "status-quo power," the U.S. could withdraw some of it's forces from Asia and Japan and count, to a certain extent, on the Chinese to keep the peace in the Western Pacific.
Really, I couldn't believe a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy would say that. Even an intelligence officer. But some very conservative people are advocating that we draw down our bases overseas (I'm looking at you, Cdr. Salamander). Well, if we do that, at least in the Western Pacific, it will only be because China takes on some of the load.
Remember one last thing from the interview: "No part of the world today can be considered an exclusive zone."