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Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

Former National Security Advisor

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Famous Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

“[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.”

IgnoranceForeign PolicyGeopoliticsPopulismAmerican ExceptionalismAmerican People
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the "American dream"-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system”

United StatesThe American Dream
Book:Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power
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“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.”

NeedsForceNationsSecretLeaderTechnologySecurityProducePeriodsMajorsAvailableStormTechniqueWeatherWarfareMinimumEmployedDroughtConductingModificationSecurity Forces
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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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.”

WorldProblemPoliticalEmotionProduceAmountCircumstancesDegreesUniversalRelationResponseAwakeningIntenseTensionOur WorldIntegratedUnprecedentedIrrationalityInterstate
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“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.”

MenStatesPoliticalForceNationsTermActingCreativeConceptsFundamentalsInternationalPlanningCorporationsOrganizedPrincipalUnitsMultinationalsMultinational CorporationsOrganized Life
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“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.”

FallSocialEconomicMilitaryDirectVictimUnionsDefeatEmpiresSovietSoviet UnionStrainFragmentedDisintegration
Book:The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives
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“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.”

WorldLongCharacterRunningSocialEconomicTransformationIncludingChinaOpennessCommunistDictatorshipLong RunsCompatibleDynamic Characters
Book:The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives
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“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.”

PeopleWorldMeanPersonsValuesWatchesDoubtInfluenceCitizensBehaviorDetailsTechniqueObjectivesTraditionalPermanentNo DoubtElitesFulfillingNwoTraditional Values
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“The political awakening that is happening worldwide is a major challenge for America, because it means that the world is much more restless. It's stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past.”

IfsWorldMeanDifferentAgeAmericaPastPoliticalChallengesMajorsHappeningsAwakeningSatisfiedIntenseRelateAspirationRestlessLivelyStirringRecent Past
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“America is the only superpower. But our leadership is being tested in the Middle East, and some of the things that we have done in the Middle East are contributing to a potential explosion region-wide. And if that explosion gets out of hand, we may end up being bogged down for many years to come in a conflict that will be profoundly damaging to our capacity to exercise our power, to address the problems implicit in this global awakening, and we may face a world in which much of the world turns away from us, seeks its own equilibrium, but probably slides into a growing chaos.”

IfsWorldYearsMayEndsDoneProblemHandsAmericaFacesTurnsGrowingMiddleExerciseConflictCapacityChaosWideEastAwakeningAddressesRegionsMiddle EastTestedSlidesExplosionsEquilibriumContributingSuperpowerImplicit
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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“The Israeli-Palestinian problem becomes very acute with Gaza dominated by Hamas. With the possibility of the conflict escalating, not only in terms of Gaza but also the Hezbollah and Lebanon, with the continuing crisis in Iraq, which is very dynamic and unpredictable and which could get out of hand, and maybe even escalate and enlarge.”

ProblemHandsTermPossibilityConflictCrisisIraqPalestinianContinuingUnpredictableIsraeliGazaLebanonHamasHezbollahEscalating
Author:Zbigniew Brzezinski
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