Introduction: Superpower Politics -- 1. Hegemony of a New Type. The Short Road to Global Supremacy. The First Global Power. The American Global System -- 2. The Eurasian Chessboard. Geopolitics and Geostrategy. Geostrategic Players and Geopolitical Pivots. Critical Choices and Potential Challenges -- 3. The Democratic Bridgehead. Grandeur and Redemption. America's Central Objective. Europe's Historic Timetable -- 4. The Black Hole. Russia's New Geopolitical Setting. Geostrategic Phantasmagoria. The Dilemma of the One Alternative -- 5. The Eurasian Balkans. The Ethnic Cauldron. The Multiple Contest. Neither Dominion Nor Exclusion -- 6. The Far Eastern Anchor. China: Not Global but Regional. Japan: Not Regional but International. America's Geostrategic Adjustment -- 7. Conclusion. A Geostrategy for Eurasia. A Trans-Eurasian Security System. Beyond the Last Global Superpower

The heart of The Grand Chessboard is Brzezinski's analysis of the four critical regions of Eurasia and of the stakes for America in each arena - Europe, Russia, Central Asia, and East Asia. The crucial fault lines may seem familiar, but the implosion of the Soviet Union has created new rivalries and new relationships, and Brzezinski maps out the strategic ramifications of the new geopolitical realities