
© CSIS.orgHenry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski in 2016
It is so long since Brzezinski originally formulated the Mackinder notion, that classical diplomacy has become etiolated.In 1997, Zbig Brzezinski, the original 'driver' behind the making of Afghanistan as a quagmire of 'mud' into which Russia was to be dragged, wrote his celebrated book,
The Grand Chessboard. It was a work that 'forever' embedded the Mackinder doctrine of 'he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world' into the U.S. zeitgeist.
Tellingly, its subtitle was
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives. Brzezinski had already written in his book that absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can
and would. Thus, Mackinder's doctrine,
'He who controls the heartland' dictum, was codified into U.S. 'cannon law' -
never to permit a united heartland. And Ukraine became seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved.
Brzezinski further ordained that this 'Grand Game of Chess'
was to be one of pure U.S. primacy: "No, no one else plays", he insisted; it is a game purely for one. Once a chess piece is moved; 'we' (the U.S.) simply turn the board the other way around - and move the other side's chess pieces (for 'them'). There is 'no other' in this game", Brzezinski warned.
Comment: Accusations are not crimes. Claims are not fraud. Both are common parts to a dispute.