Zitate von Zbigniew Brzeziński
Zbigniew Brzeziński
Geburtstag: 28. März 1928
Todesdatum: 26. Mai 2017
Andere Namen: Збигнев Бжезинский
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński [ˈzbiɡɲɛf kaˈʑimjɛʐ bʐɛˈʑij̃skʲi] war ein polnisch-US-amerikanischer Politikwissenschaftler und Politikberater.
Er war von 1966 bis 1968 Wahlkampf-Berater Lyndon B. Johnsons und von 1977 bis 1981 Sicherheitsberater von US-Präsident Jimmy Carter. Er war Professor für US-amerikanische Außenpolitik an der School of Advanced International Studies der Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., Berater am „Zentrum für Strategische und Internationale Studien“ in Washington, D.C. und Autor renommierter politischer Analysen. Daneben betätigte er sich als Unternehmensberater für mehrere große US-amerikanische und internationale Firmen.
Brzeziński wird zur realistischen Schule der Internationalen Politik gerechnet und steht geopolitisch in der Tradition Halford Mackinders und Nicholas J. Spykmans. Parteipolitisch stand er eher den Demokraten nahe. Er wurde oft gegen seinen konservativen „Rivalen“ Kissinger abgegrenzt, obwohl die Gemeinsamkeiten größer sind als die Unterschiede.Brzeziński wurde ein konsequenter Unilateralismus zugeschrieben. Hinsichtlich dieses Unilateralismus wird Brzeziński mit folgenden Theoretikern verglichen: Francis Fukuyama, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer, Edward Luttwak, Samuel P. Huntington und Paul Wolfowitz.
Zitate Zbigniew Brzeziński
„History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.“
The New York Times, January 18, 1981 Quotation of the Day http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/18/nyregion/quotation-of-the-day-227621.html?scp=28&sq=Brzezinski&st=nyt.
Variante: History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.
„Fortunately for America, Eurasia is too big to be politically one. Eurasia is thus the chessboard on which the struggle for global primacy continues to be played.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Quelle: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 31.
„In brief, for the United States, Eurasian geostrategy involves the purposeful management of geostrategically dynamic states and the careful handling of geopolitically catalytic states, in keeping with the twin interests of America in the short-term: preservation of its unique global power and in the long-run transformation of it into increasingly institutionalized global cooperation. To put it in a terminology that hearkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy 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.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Quelle: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 40.
„I am very worried that 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.“
Spokespersons of US Right 'In Most Cases Stunningly Ignorant, Interview in Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733079,00.html, December 6, 2010.
„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.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Conclusion, p. 211.
The Grand Chessboard (1997)
„This is a highly motivated, good country. It is driven by good motives. But it is also a country with an extremely simplistic understanding of world affairs, and with still a high confidence in America’s capacity to prevail, by force if necessary. (…) This is a country of good emotions, but poor knowledge and little sophistication about the world.“
Interview in The National Interest - Brzezinski on the Syria Crisis, Interview in The National Interest http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/brzezinski-the-syria-crisis-8636 (June 24, 2013).
„You have to ask yourself, 'What was the desire of the people who, after more than 40 years of Soviet oppression, became free?' They didn’t want to be pawns between a residual West that ended somewhere on the borders of the old West Germany and a resurgent Russia. They wanted to be part of the democratic West and, eventually, of the European Union. Those are perfectly legitimate aspirations. This is no threat to Russia –- except to those Russians who cannot conceive of Russia as anything else but a dominant empire that rules not only over the Russian people but over those adjoining Russian territory.“
Interview in The Huffington Post - NATO Should Stop Putin From Restoring Czarist Empire, Zbigniew Brzezinski Says http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/03/zbigniew-brzezinski-nato-putin-ukraine_n_5760068.html (September 3, 2014). Commenting on criticisms of NATO expansion to Eastern Europe.
„In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities effectively exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch Between Two Ages
1970, Between Two Ages : America's Role in the Technetronic Era.
„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.“
Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris (15-21 January 1998). (Brzezinski has repeatedly http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04252012-175722/unrestricted/WHITE_THESIS.pdf denied https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjAsQJh7OM having said this, and no such memo exists. https://books.google.com/books?id=ToYxFL5wmBIC&q=deep+skepticism#v=snippet&q=deep%20skepticism&f=false)
Disputed
„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.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Conclusion, p. 213.
The Grand Chessboard (1997)
„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.“
Elizabeth Becker, When The War Was Over..., 1979, p. 435 http://books.google.com/books?id=3NHoI2HoFiQC&pg=PA435&lpg=PA435&dq=%22i+encouraged+the+chinese+to+support+pol+pot%22+becker&source=web&ots=XLHBFETcFH&sig=kznWEHGxoTAgUR-BTChSThlGrpk (Brzezinski responded in the letter the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/22/opinion/l-pol-pot-s-evil-had-many-faces-china-acted-alone-605387.html clarifying his postion at the time: "China acted alone [... Becker's article] asserts flatly as if it was a fact that the Carter Administration "helped arrange continued Chinese aid" to Pol Pot.[...] we told the Chinese explicitly that in our view Pol Pot was an abomination and that the United States would have nothing to do with him directly or indirectly.").
Disputed
„…foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times.“
Address to the New American Strategies Conference, (October 28, 2003).
„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 Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Quelle: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 62.
„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.“
Memo to President Carter following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979).
„The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.“
— Zbigniew Brzeziński, buch The Grand Chessboard
Quelle: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 35.
„[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.“
Spokespersons of US Right 'In Most Cases Stunningly Ignorant, Interview in Der Spiegel http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,733079,00.html (December 6, 2010).
„Benchmarks are targets that have to be fulfilled. They cannot be fulfilled in an indefinite period of time, so there are timetables in benchmarks.“
PBS NewsHour, October 26, 2006 PBS Newshour http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec06/iraq_10-25.html (2006). On the "benchmarks" used by George W. Bush.
