Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

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Zbigniew Brzezinski

Profession : Politician

Birth : March 28, 1928

America's decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political stability of the entire Middle East.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The worsening of relations between a declining America and an internally troubled Mexico could even give rise to a particularly ominous phenomenon: the emergence, as a major issue in nationalistically aroused Mexican politics, of territorial claims justified by history and ignited by cross-border incidents.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Americans don't learn about the world; they don't study world history, other than American history in a very one-sided fashion, and they don't study geography.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Japan needs the American market and it also needs American security protection. Japan also needs America as the necessary stabilizer of an orderly world system with economies truly open to international trade.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

A Russia that gradually begins to gravitate toward the West will also be a Russia that ceases to disrupt the international system.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Commitment and credibility go hand in hand.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

If we end up with war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran at the same time, can anyone see a more damaging prospect for America's world role than that?

Zbigniew Brzezinski

During the twentieth century, men fought on behalf of nationalism. Yet the wars they fought were also engendered by dislocations in world markets and by social revolution stimulated by the coming of the industrial age.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

During the nineteenth century, men died believing in the cause of royalty or republicanism. In reality, much of their sacrifice was rendered on the altar of the new nationalism.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The difference between the Bush I war against Iraq and the Bush II war against Iraq is that in the first one, we appealed to the sentiments and interests of the different groupings in the region and had them with us. In the second one, we did it on our own, on the basis of false premises, with extremely brutality and lack of political skill.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The external Soviet empire lasted 45 years. It is shattered, beyond redemption or repair.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Being a former first lady doesn't prepare you to be president.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The United States should not engage in tit-for-tat polemics directed at its most important allies. That is as demeaning as it is destructive.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

America's victory in the Cold War was not without painful social costs.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

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

Zbigniew Brzezinski

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

Zbigniew Brzezinski

The public has been told repeatedly that terrorism is 'evil,' which it undoubtedly is, and that 'evildoers' are responsible for it, which doubtless they are. But beyond these justifiable condemnations, there is a historical void.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Given the accelerating velocity of history, we should begin charting deliberately the next phase in its trajectory.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

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.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating.

Zbigniew Brzezinski