A turning point in strategic thought on Asia policy?

To compare Brzezinski’s Grand Chessboard to Colby’s Strategy of Denial is to compare empire-building to moat-digging. U.S. Asia policy has changed.

The passing of Richard Armitage, Joseph Nye, Henry Kissinger, and just under ten years ago, Zbigniew Brzezinski, marks more than just the end of an era of iconic U.S. foreign policy thinkers. It symbolizes a broader intellectual shift—away from expansive, global strategic frameworks rooted in Cold War imperatives, and toward narrower, regional and tactical defense doctrines.

The intellectual legacy that once prioritized American hegemony through complex balancing across the Eurasian landmass has given way to what Elbridge Colby, a central figure in Trump-era foreign policy, unapologetically calls the “strategy of denial.”

At the core of this transition lies a stark difference in scale, ambition, and underlying philosophical assumptions about America’s place in the world.