It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is defense spending), and the human sacrifice (casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.
en
Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Zbigniew Brzezinski citations célèbres
The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
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Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Public opinion polls suggest that only a small minority (13 percent) of Americans favor the proposition that 'as the sole remaining superpower, the US should continue to be the preeminent world leader in solving international problems'. [...] As America becomes an increasingly multicultural 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. [...] More generally, cultural change in America may also be uncongenial to the sustained exercise abroad of genuinely imperial power. That exercise requires a high degree of doctrinal motivation, intellectual commitment, and patriotic gratification. [...] Mass communications have been playing a particularly important role in that regard, generating a strong revulsion against any selective use of force that entails even low levels of casualties [...] In brief, the U.S. Policy goals must be un-apologetically twofold: to perpetuate America's own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer
en
Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief.
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Between Two Ages - 1970
It is imperative that no Eurasian challenger emerges, capable of dominating Eurasia and thus of also challenging America. The formulation of a comprehensive and intergrated Eurasian geostrategy is therefore the purpose of this book.
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Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Tu put it in a terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires, the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependance among the vassels, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.
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Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Two basic steps are thus required: first to identify the geostrategically dynamic Eurasian states that have the power to cause a potentially important shift in the international distribution of power and to decipher the central external goals of their respective political elites and the likely consequences of their seeking to attain them; [...] second to formulate specific U.S. policies to offset, co-opt, and/or control the above
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Le Grand Echiquier - 1997
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Citations en anglais
“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.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 1, Hegemony Of A New Type, p. 9.
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.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 104.
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
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 1, Hegemony Of A New Type, p. 25.
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
Memo to President Carter following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979).
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 35.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 118.
1970, Between Two Ages : America's Role in the Technetronic Era.
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.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 40.
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).
“For America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia.”
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 30.
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (March 14, 2007).
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 62.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 35-36.
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).
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 2, The Eurasian Chessboard, p. 31.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 3, The Democratic Bridgehead, p. 75.
Source: The Grand Chessboard (1997), Chapter 4, The Black Hole, p. 122.
