Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes
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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.
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There is an element of paranoia in this inclination to view any serious attempt at a compromised peace as somehow directed against Israel.
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Our world is integrated to an unprecedented degree, while the global political awakening is injecting into interstate relations an intense amount of tension, emotion, even irrationality, which could cumulatively produce circumstances that preclude an effective and genuinely shared universal response to new global problems.
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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.
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The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.
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The Israelis have taken a lot of security measures which reduce significantly the ability of Iran to inflict truly severe pain in Israel. But America is vulnerable with 100,000 troops in Iraq and more than half of that in Afghanistan, and we depend heavily on access to Middle Eastern oil. We're sitting targets for debilitating Iranian retaliation.
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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.
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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.
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There is crisis in Europe, where Russia is the principle intriguer and player, which affects a major source of international business and flow of capital.
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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.
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This will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our non-proliferation policy.
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For people of different faiths to coexist, it's going to take maturity, wisdom, and patience. All of which come, eventually, with tolerance. And it's a process of time.
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If a new president personalizes a rather different concept of America and a different sense of America's mission in the world than has been the case with president George W. Bush, then that almost automatically will help to improve America's global image. But the tangibles involving the war and the economy are not going to be easy to fix.
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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.
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I think if NATO haven't expanded, we would have a no-man's zone between the E.U. and NATO and Russia, and that would be very dangerous.
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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.
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In the longer run, I happen to think that Russia really has no choice but to become gradually more associated with the Euro-Atlantic community. Because if it isn't, then it's going to find itself essentially facing China all by itself, facing the Euro-Atlantic community all by itself.
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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.
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The kind of problem that America faces in Iraq is a little bit the kind of problem that Israel faced in dealing with Hezbollah. If the conflict, the theater of conflict enlarges, it's going to become more and more absorbing and more and more costly.
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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.
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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.
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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"
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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.
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Let's address the issue of how America deals with the Iraqis and how we deal with the region, recognize the fact that this is a misadventure, which it is in our interest to terminate and not to repeat. That's a rather important conclusion to draw, and a very important lesson.