The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives

by Zbigniew Brzeziński

From one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers, the classic treatise on America's strategic mission in the modern world

“The Grand Chessboard makes permanent contributions to the national debate over American foreign policy and power.”―Los Angeles Times

In this seminal work, celebrated political scientist Zbigniew Brzezinski delivers a provocative, revolutionary geostrategy for American preeminence in the twenty-first century. The United States’ crucial task, he argues, is to become the sole political arbiter in Eurasia and prevent the emergence of any rival power threatening our material and diplomatic interests. The Eurasian landmass, home to the greatest part of the globe's population, natural resources, and economic activity, is the “grand chessboard” on which Brzezinski argues that America's supremacy will be ratified and challenged. With signature insight and lucidity, Brzezinski spans from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the Russo-Ukrainian War and the rise of China.

The Grand Chessboard is a landmark work, both in Brzezinski’s oeuvre and in the field of political science. It remains an essential, powerful blueprint for protecting America's most vital interests in Eurasia and beyond.

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Expected publication February 17, 2026

About the author

Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was a Polish-American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Known for his hawkish foreign policy at a time when the Democratic Party was increasingly dovish, he is a foreign policy realist and considered by some to be the Democrats' response to Republican realist Henry Kissinger.

Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China), the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), the brokering of the Camp David Accords, the transition of Iran to an anti-Western Islamic state, encouraging reform in Eastern Europe, emphasizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy, the arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-friendly Afghan government, increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war, and later to counter the Soviet invasion, and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.

He was a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He appeared frequently as an expert on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.