Brzezinski's Argumentative Analysis

In a brief 2012 interview with PBS Newshour, Zbigniew Brzezinski offers his opinion on how the United States will need to act during the current shift in power as we see a rise in the influence of China and the East and a decline in power of the United States and the West and a change in state interaction to focus on global issues. Brzezinski suggests that in response to these issues “America ought to strive to create some sort of balance, global equilibrium,so that we can all collectively address the problems that the world faces ” (PBS Newshour). There are three main parts to his argument; that we need to expand the west to include Russia and Turkey as future allies, re-evaluate America’s focus as a partner in the international community …show more content…
They’re weapons of deterrence” (PBS Newshour). Mearsheimer elaborates that Iran having such weapons would prevent future conflicts with other Middle East states like Iraq and Israel, but also would also prevent outside nations such as the United States from making threatening overtures (PBS Newshour). Unlike Waltz though, Mearsheimer admits there is a small chance that a conventional war involving Iran would carry the possibility of “inadvertent escalation” (PBS Newshour) and lead to the use of nuclear weaponry and did not fully support the thought of Iran’s weaponry …show more content…
Zakheim believes that Iran’s potential nuclear weapons would lead to several other countries to obtain their own for fear that Iran would use theirs to blackmail them or give them to others to use against them (PBS Newshour). Zakheim also disagrees and points out that nuclear capable nations have gone to war and does not believe that Israeli nuclear weapons has caused the instability in the Middle East (PBS