Cover of the German edition, Das Brzezinski-Paradoxon, by Sedika Weingärtner: Zbigniew Brzezinski and the author before a sepia globe.

Ein geopolitisches Handbuch für die multipolare Welt von 2026

Das Brzezinski-Paradoxon

Eine Analyse geopolitischer Zusammenhänge

Author Sedika Weingärtner

A concise handbook that reads Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard against the multipolar realities of 2026.

Language
German
Paperback
ISBN 978-1-995790-02-2
eBook
ISBN 978-1-995790-03-9

Synopsis

The Grand Chessboard shaped a generation of Western strategy. Sedika Weingärtner revisits its central assumptions one by one and asks what diplomats must now unlearn.

In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski pictured Eurasia as a chessboard that the United States could direct as its arbiter, and he named his greatest fear: a coalition of Russia, China and Iran.

In this concise handbook, Sedika Weingärtner sets his best-known theses beside the world of 2026 as she reads it, from Ukraine and Afghanistan to the petrodollar, Russia’s resilience and China’s technological rise. Her argument is that the pieces on the board no longer follow the old grandmaster’s rules.

About the book

Written with diplomats and policy readers in mind, each chapter places one of Brzezinski’s theses beside the author’s reading of the present and closes with a diplomatic commentary. The handbook ends with principles for a diplomacy that must work without a single arbiter, and gathers realist, Chinese, Singaporean and Gulf perspectives on the multipolar turn.

The geopolitical assessments summarised on this page are the author’s own arguments and perspectives, developed in the book.

Key themes

  • The decline of unipolarity
  • Ukraine and the question of Russian power
  • Afghanistan, the “Heart of Asia”
  • China’s rise and the limits of containment
  • The petrodollar and new financial architectures
  • Diplomacy in a multipolar world

Five arenas, re-examined

  1. The Ukraine illusion

    And the myth of the “regional power”

  2. Afghanistan

    The Heart of Asia and the vacuum filled by the East

  3. The decline of unipolarity

    When the arbiter becomes a player

  4. Russia

    From “black hole” to “active disruptor”

  5. China

    The illusion of internal collapse

  6. Conclusion

    The art of navigating a world without an arbiter

Excerpt

Read an excerpt

From the Introduction · Excerpt from the German edition.

Als Zbigniew Brzezinski Ende der 1990er Jahre sein monumentales Werk „Die einzige Weltmacht“ (The Grand Chessboard) verfasste, ging er von einer unumstößlichen Prämisse aus: Die Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika sind die unangefochtene, unipolare Supermacht, die als Schiedsrichter und oberster Akteur das geopolitische Spiel auf dem eurasischen Kontinent lenken muss. Seine größte strategische Angst war das Entstehen einer „antihegemonialen Koalition“ zwischen Russland, China und dem Iran.

Heute, im Jahr 2026, ist dieser Albtraum zur geopolitischen Realität geworden. Brzezinskis grundlegende Annahmen liegen unter den Trümmern der jüngsten globalen Entwicklungen begraben.

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English edition

The Brzezinski Paradox

Author name on cover
Sedika Weingärtner
Paperback
ISBN 978-1-995790-00-8
eBook
ISBN 978-1-995790-01-5
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  • Signed copy from the author link coming soon

Purchase links for this edition will be added shortly. For availability, please get in touch. Enquire about this book

German edition

Das Brzezinski-Paradoxon

Author name on cover
Sedika Weingärtner
Paperback
ISBN 978-1-995790-02-2
eBook
ISBN 978-1-995790-03-9
  • Amazon link coming soon
  • Publisher link coming soon
  • Independent bookshop link coming soon
  • Signed copy from the author link coming soon

Purchase links for this edition will be added shortly. For availability, please get in touch. Enquire about this book

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