Quote

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.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

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Zbigniew Brzezinski
Age: 89 †
Born: 1928
Born: March 28
Died: 2017
Died: May 26
Author
Critic
Former National Security Advisor
Geopolitician
Pedagogue
Political Scientist
Strategist
University Teacher
Warszawa
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński
Zbig
President
Condition
Endorsed
Difficult
Intelligent
Unhealthy
Makes
Ignorance
Pursued
Doe
Americans
Complexity
Country
Close
Total
Much
Conditions
Foreign
World
Policy
Pursue
People
Justice
Ignorant

More quotes by Zbigniew Brzezinski

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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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With its declining population, with people moving out of the Far East, with an enormously powerful China in the east, I think the real destiny of Russia is to become closer to the West.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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We cannot have that relationship if we only dictate or threaten and condemn those who disagree.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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The United States is prepared really to be engaged in the quest to get people in the world the dignities that they seek today, the social justice that they feel they're deprived of, and the common solution to global problems.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border of Afghanistan, I wrote to President Jimmy Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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A great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle, but it is also a struggle that has to be waged intelligently.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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The Eastern Europeans invested too many of their hopes in the notion that somehow or other the missile shield, even if directed at Iran, would reinforce their security links with the U.S. vis-à-vis Russia.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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Bipartisanship helps to avoid extremes and imbalances. It causes compromises and accommodations. So let's cooperate.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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The president has to project to the American people a sense of demanding idealism. Idealism which is not based in self-indulgence, but on self-denial and sacrifice, and on this such an America is going to be credible to the world.
Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.
Zbigniew Brzezinski