"Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower" by Zbigniew Brzezinki

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Communist Regime were historic events. The world captured by the phase, “Cold War”, changed. In 1990, there was only one indisputable world leader, the United States. It was a moment when our leadership could have made a monumental change in how nations interacted. As Bush I so often said, there was a “new world order”. The question Zbigniew Brzezinki asks is: how did each of the three presidents who held office since 1990 succeed in providing the leadership?

Bush I was credited for dealing well with the breakup of the Soviet Union. He, as he said himself, never had “the vision thing”. He never thought through the implications of a “new world order”. There were opportunities lost, e.g., the Middle East in general and the Israel-Palestine conflict, in particular.

Clinton did well in terms of managing or assisting the incorporation of former Soviet client-states into NATO and the EU. He demonstrated leadership in the Balkans. However, he too failed to seize opportunities to make a significant difference, e.g., Israel-Palestine conflict could have been shepherded more successfully. Secondly, he became enamored with the perceived inevitable progress for all nations that the global economy would achieve.

And, then, we have Bush II, admittedly a disaster. For Brzesinki, the major problem was the ideological convictions underlying policy decisions, rather than a realistic appraisal of opportunities that begged for international cooperation. If Bush I and Clinton did not pursue the leadership potential inherent in our position in the world order, Bush II turned the tables: rather than a leader, we became a problem!

Whoever becomes President in 2009 will have a challenge to reverse the current negative situation. The invasion of Iraq has altered the Middle East in ways that are yet to be fully documented. Not only is there instability, but we know that there are vested nations vying for power. How the United States gets back into a multilateral partner with Europe will be a major responsibility of the new president. China will become a power. How we deal with this emerging economic and military power will determine to some extent how successfully China will deal with its neighbors, e.g., Japan, Korea and India.

We have to return to former mechanisms of international diplomacy by utilizing soft power. There was a time when our nation was a symbol of the ideal nation. We have to become a nation that returns to the power that comes from modeling what our Constitution declares.