Zbigniew Brzezinski

There's something troubling about a condition in which one country alone, which has roughly 5 percent of the world's population, spends more than 50 percent of the world's defense budgets. There's something weird about it.

I have been struck by the pervasive frequency of pompously patriotic ads for the defense industry, usually accompanied by deferential salutations to our men and women who are heroically sacrificing their lives in our defense. Do we really need all of that for our security?

There's no point considering something which is very unrealistic.

Yes, ISIS is a threat. It's more than a nuisance. It's also in many respects criminal violence. But it isn't, in my view, a central strategic issue facing humanity.

I don't feel I was 'born American,' but my homeland was denied to me after the end of World War II, and I craved something I could identify with. When I became a student at Harvard in the 1950s, America very quickly filled the vacuum. I felt I was American, but I think it's more revealing of America how quickly others here accepted me.

Foreign policy should not be justified through making oneself feel good, but through results that have tangible consequences.

There may be circumstances in which damaging our relationship with countries over human rights is counterproductive and the benefits to human rights may be very small because of our limited capacity to enforce our stance. That was the dilemma the United States faced after Tiananmen Square.

If we slide into a pattern of just thinking about today, we'll end up reacting to yesterday instead of shaping something more constructive in the world.

What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?

I realise that in an electoral campaign, you don't want to antagonise large groups which are highly motivated.

Neither the United States nor Israel has the capacity to impose a unilateral solution in the Middle East.

The Soviet Union's termination, which brought to an end the bipolar world, ushered in an era of U.S. hegemony. Hegemony, however, should not be confused with omnipotence. Hegemony is not omnipotence but is certainly preponderance.

I do think America has made it quite clear that it is in the interest both of America and China to avoid situations in which they will be pushed toward a collision.

A Russia that gradually begins to gravitate toward the West will also be a Russia that ceases to disrupt the international system.

I draw a very clear distinction between populism and democracy.

I think we have to pay attention to the Arab masses not just in the Gulf States, but also in the hinterlands.

Look: I don't want to live with a nuclear Iran. I would like to make it uncomfortable for them to seek it.

I would like to promote internal change in Iran - which is more likely if we don't fuse Iranian nationalism with Iranian fundamentalism.

We can't have an intelligent foreign policy unless we have an intelligent public, because we're a democracy.

We don't have a public that really understands the world anymore, and in the age of complexity, that problem becomes much more difficult.

We defended our allies in Europe for 40 years during the worst days of the Cold War - very threatening days of the Cold War - and nothing happened. So deterrence does work.

You know who's messianic? Netanyahu, because he talks that way. And that's a very risky position.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

Moderation and bipartisan consensus go hand in hand.

Terrorism cannot be isolated from its political, historical, and even social context.

AIPAC has consistently opposed a two-state solution, and a lot of members of Congress have been intimidated, and I don't think that's healthy.

The difference between the Bush I war against Iraq and the Bush II war against Iraq is that in the first one, we appealed to the sentiments and interests of the different groupings in the region and had them with us. In the second one, we did it on our own, on the basis of false premises, with extremely brutality and lack of political skill.

Rushing to war is not a wise course of action.

I don't approve of the notion that we should be announcing who should step down from the position of a head of a state unless we are seriously prepared to remove that person. But if we are not, if we are being prudent and careful, then let's also be careful with how we talk.

Human affairs require some combination of moral commitment with disciplined political action. And that is what keeps me intrigued and challenged and wanting to influence events.

During the nineteenth century, men died believing in the cause of royalty or republicanism. In reality, much of their sacrifice was rendered on the altar of the new nationalism.

During the twentieth century, men fought on behalf of nationalism. Yet the wars they fought were also engendered by dislocations in world markets and by social revolution stimulated by the coming of the industrial age.

Both World War II and the subsequent Cold War gave America's involvement in world affairs a clear focus. The objectives of foreign policy were relatively easy to define, and they could be imbued with high moral content.

Americans must place greater emphasis on the more subtle dimensions of national power, such as innovation, education, the balance of force and diplomacy, and the quality of political leadership.

To his credit, Obama has undertaken a truly ambitious effort to redefine the United States' view of the world and to reconnect the United States with the emerging historical context of the twenty-first century. He has done this remarkably well.

World War II and the ensuing Cold War compelled the United States to develop a sustained commitment to Western Europe and the Far East.

Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states.

It is axiomatic that the security of America and Europe are linked.

The Cold War did end in the victory of one side and in the defeat of the other. This reality cannot be denied, despite the understandable sensitivities that such a conclusion provokes among the tenderhearted in the West and some of the former leaders of the defeated side.

The first 'world' war was in reality the last European war fought by globally significant European powers.

The future is inherently full of discontinuities, and lessons of the past must be applied with enormous caution.

The congressional role in declaring war is especially important not when the United States is the victim of an attack, but when the United States is planning to wage war abroad.

Only a dynamic and strategically-minded America, together with a unifying Europe, can jointly promote a larger and more vital West, one capable of acting as a responsible partner to the rising and increasingly assertive East.

The costly unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency led to a decade of war in the Middle East and the derailment of American foreign policy at large.

As America's nuclear strategic monopoly faded, the United States sought to create advantages elsewhere, notably in the peaceful cooperation between the United States and communist China under Deng Xiaoping.

With the decline of America's global preeminence, weaker countries will be more susceptible to the assertive influence of major regional powers.

The potential for regional conflict in the absence of an internationally active America is real.

Pakistan's political instability is its greatest vulnerability, and a decline in U.S. power would reduce America's ability to aid Pakistan's consolidation and development.

America's decline would set in motion tectonic shifts undermining the political stability of the entire Middle East.

A waning United States would likely be more nationalistic, more defensive about its national identity, more paranoid about its homeland security, and less willing to sacrifice resources for the sake of others' development.