Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotations

We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

We have actually experienced in recent months a dramatic demonstration of an unprecedented intelligence failure, perhaps the most significant intelligence failure in the history of the United States.

We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

I cite these events because I think they underline two very disturbing phenomena - the loss of U.S. international credibility, the growing U.S. international isolation.

Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers.

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.

It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam.

War on terrorism defines the central preoccupation of the United States in the world today, and it does reflect in my view a rather narrow and extremist vision of foreign policy of the world's first superpower, of a great democracy, with genuinely idealistic traditions.

Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodations. So let's cooperate.

We should be therefore supporting a larger Europe, and in so doing we should strive to expand the zone of peace and prosperity in the world which is the necessary foundation for a stable international system in which our leadership could be fruitfully exercised.

Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Sovereignty is a word that is used often but it has really no specific meaning. Sovereignty today is nominal. Any number of countries that are sovereign are sovereign only nominally and relatively.

American power worldwide is at its historic zenith.

We need to ask who is the enemy, and the enemies are terrorists.

Let's cooperate and challenge the administration to cooperate with us because within the administration there are also moderates and people who are not fully comfortable with the tendencies that have prevailed in recent times.

Palestinian terrorism has to be rejected and condemned, yes. But it should not be translated defacto into a policy of support for a really increasingly brutal repression, colonial settlements and a new wall.

But if Russia is to be part of this larger zone of peace it cannot bring into it its imperial baggage. It cannot bring into it a policy of genocide against the Chechens, and cannot kill journalists, and it cannot repress the mass media.

In Iraq we must succeed. Failure is not an option.

To increase the zone of peace is to build the inner core of a stable international zone.

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979.

Not to mention the fact that of course terrorists hate freedom. I think they do hate. But believe me, I don't think they sit there abstractly hating freedom.

We should seek to cooperate with Europe, not to divide Europe to a fictitious new and a fictitious old.

The first and most important is to emphasize the enduring nature of the alliance relationship particularly with Europe which does share our values and interests even if it disagrees with us on specific policies.

If they had them, and they were armed to the teeth with them, why didn't they use them? ... If they didn't use them and hid them, that means they were deterred. And how do you hide all of these hundreds and hundreds of weapons with which they're armed?

Maybe we're better off with him sitting in New York at the U.N. than with him having an important post either in the State Department or in the National Security Council in the White House, actually shaping American policy.

I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thai to help the Khmer Rouge. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him. But China could.

I think there is going to be no peace in the Middle East unless the United States steps forward.

I think we haven't had a real serious national debate in this country as to what this issue is about, ... And we're dealing with kind of general slogans and images, a great deal of fear and panic. But I think that the Democrats are very much at fault in not generating a genuine debate. And I think the administration has been disingenuous in its argumentation.

I think it is a powerful statement. It raises fundamental issues of morality, trust.

Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

Doing it all by ourselves on our terms, ignoring the rest of the world, shouting loudly that if you're not with us, you are against us, is not going to be a very successful policy,

In addition to the internationalization of Iraq we have to transfer power as soon as is possible to a sovereign Iraqi authority.

A policy of simultaneously getting our allies to negotiate with the Iranians for major Iranian concessions while we at the same time condemn them internationally and allocate funds to destabilize them politically is not a policy that will be successful.

If he's going there to grandstand, then I think it's somewhat embarrassing.

Shortly, the public will be unable to reason or think for themselves. They'll only be able to parrot the information they've been given on the previous night's news.

For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia... Now a non-Eurasian power is preeminent in Eurasia - and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian continent is sustained.

Russia's only real geostrategic option - the option that would give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself - is Europe.

The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.

Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.

Speaking of a future at most only decades away, an experimenter in intelligence control asserted, “I foresee a time when we shall have the means and therefore, inevitably, the temptation to manipulate the behavior and intellectual functioning of all the people through environmental and biochemical manipulation of the brain.

We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans

More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific know-how. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control.

Because when you kill 300 people, 400 people, who have nothing to do with the provocations Hezbollah staged, but you do it in effect deliberately by being indifferent to the scale of collateral damage, you're killing hostages in the hope of intimidating those that you want to intimidate. And more likely than not you will not intimidate them. You'll simply outrage them and make them into permanent enemies with the number of such enemies increasing.

This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept.

Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.

Russia can be either an empire or a democracy, but it cannot be both. . . . Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.

The society will be dominated by an elite of persons free from traditional values who will have no doubt in fulfilling their objectives by means of purged techniques with which they will influence the behavior of people and will control and watch the society in all details. It will become possible to exert a practically permanent watch on each citizen of the world.

Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen...

The key point to bear in mind is that Russia cannot be in Europe without Ukraine also being in Europe, whereas Ukraine can be in Europe without Russia being in Europe.

nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.

[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.

In fact, an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia - is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms, determined to oppose any reintegration under Russian - and hence infidel - control.

Marxism represents a further vital and creative stage in the maturing of man's universal vision... The nation-state is gradually yielding its sovereignty... More intensive efforts to shape a new world monetary structure will have to be undertaken.

It is conceivable that at some point a truly united and powerful European Union could become a global political rival to the United States.

However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

One has to understand what the enemy is all about: the enemy's history, the enemy's culture, the enemy's aspirations. If you understand these well, you can perhaps move towards peace.

Though Stalinism may have been a needless tragedy for both the Russian people and communism as an ideal, there is the intellectually tantalizing possibility that for the world at large it was, as we shall see, a blessing in disguise.

Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

The Israelis are becoming increasingly like the white supremacist South Africans, viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life, not hesitating to kill a great many of them and justifying this on the grounds that they are being the objects of terrorism, which is true.

It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single power comes to control this geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.

The United States can certainly defeat North Vietnam, but the United States cannot defeat a guerrilla war which is being raged from a sanctuary through a pattern of penetration, intervention, evasion, which is very difficult for a technologically advanced country like the United States to combat.

Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam.

Hegemony is as old as mankind.

Today we are in a situation in which the free movement of people can have enormous, monumental dimensions, and I don't think that any country in Western Europe or in America can any longer adopt the idea of totally free movement of people. I t would simply overwhelm their social facilities, their societies and create migratory dynamics on the scales of tens and tens of millions of people. That simply is not practical.

Israel's international position is very badly damaged. A country which started off as a symbol of recovery of a people who were greatly persecuted now looks like a country that is persecuting people. And that's very bad.

I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot. I encouraged the Thailand|Thai to help the Khmer Rouge. The question was how to help the Cambodian people. Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him. But China could.

I was confident about America and the idea that in America people can become American without masking their ethnic identity.

I don't feel I was "born American," but my homeland was denied to me after the end of World War II and I craved something I could identify with.

To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geo-strategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.

Moreover, they [the Central Asian Republics] are of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and more powerful neighbors, namely Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China also signaling an increasing political interest in the region. But the Eurasian Balkans are infinitely more important as a potential economic prize: an enormous concentration of natural gas and oil reserves is located in the region, in addition to important minerals, including gold.

No matter how deeply disturbing the thought of using the environment to manipulate behavior for national advantages to some, the technology permitting such use will very probably develop within the next few decades.

I don't think there is an implicit obligation for the United States to follow like a stupid mule whatever the Israelis do. If they decide to start a war, simply on the assumption that we will be automatically drawn into it, I think it is the obligation of friendship to say "you're not going to be making national decisions for us"

People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations.

Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society.

In early times, it was easier to control a million people than to kill a million. Today, it is infinitely easier to to kill a million people than to control a million.

Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.

The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The most immediate task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role.

Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia, thereby threatening America's status as a global power.

America is now the only global superpower, and Eurasia is the globe's central arena. Hence, what happens to the distribution of power on the Eurasian continent will be of decisive importance to America's global primacy and to America's historical legacy.

We cannot leap into world government through one quick step.... The precondition for eventual and genuine globalization is progressive regionalization because by that we move toward larger, more stable, more cooperative units.

Today it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.

Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.

The momentum of Asia's economic development is already generating massive pressures for the exploration and exploitation of new sources of energy and the Central Asian region and the Caspian Sea basin are known to contain reserves of natural gas and oil that dwarf those of Kuwait, the Gulf of Mexico, or the North Sea.

An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.

There are major disappointments with the outcomes of Solidarity: corruption, and major pockets of economic backwardness and even poverty. By and large, though, if there were a choice between the life Poles led in the 1970s and 1980s and now, nobody but a lunatic would say they wanted to have back what they had before.

We have to make a really cold judgement. Would the consequence of civil war be more devastating than the consequences of staying the course?.

The Ukrainian opposition should adopt democratic unity as its main principle, and it also must have one leader.

Technology will make available to the leaders of major nations, techniques for conducting secret warfare, of which only a bare minimum of the security forces need be appraised.....techniques of weather modification could be employed to produce prolonged periods of drought or storm.

The dynamic character of China's nonstatist economic transformation, including its social openness to the rest of the world, is not mutually compatible in the long run with a relatively closed and bureaucratically rigid Communist dictatorship.

There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power.

With the more endowed nations constrained by their own higher technological capacity for self-destruction as well as by self interest, war may have become a luxury that only the poor peoples of this world can afford.

Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains.

Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks." (On the "benchmarks" used by George W. Bush

Lets cooperate and challenge the administration to cooperate with us because within the administration there are also moderates and people who are not fully comfortable with the tendencies that have prevailed in recent times.

The language of the internet is English, and an overwhelming proportion of the global computer chatter also originates from America, influencing the content of global conversation.

The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.

In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last.