On Global Politics

brzezinski — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 22:12:14 +0000

“The notion that we can create global order by the use of force has more limited application. It has to involve, if force has to be used, much more anticipated character of the eventual resolution of the problem. It cannot be undertaken simply because there is a need for response. That is a prescription for getting involved without end, as the problems breed new problems and so forth.”

“We have to face the fact that we’re now living in a world that has the United States preeminent but not really dominant. But in the absence of American preeminence, there is a real danger that the world will simply fragment into the kind of conflicts we’re seeing now in the Middle East or potentially with Russia, and we would be missing an opportunity to exploit the fact that a primary interest of the Chinese right now is in becoming established as a successful co-leader of the world, eventually perhaps the leader. And that requires a much more sustained diplomatic effort, I think, in addition to some of the things that we’re doing.”

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On Global Crisis

brzezinski — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 22:14:16 +0000

“Today, I think the world is really facing a global crisis, which is simultaneously political, economic, systemic, racial, religious. We have had major international crises historically, but the scope of these international crises gradually got larger and larger. Now the crises are practically all over the place. And the places that are not in crisis are beginning to show some evidence of probably being in crisis before too long.”

“Most of the problems that we had to deal with in the forties, fifties, sixties up to recent years were problems that were prolonged and antedated the event, so to speak. It grew into a problem. Now things happen so quickly and so inconsistently that it’s a continuous struggle, I think, to be on top of it and to have a sustained sense of direction.”

“The concept of a state has a huge spectrum ranging from serious, responsible democracies to non-democratic states, but deeply aware of their own vulnerability as well as of their own power to much more primitive, more emotional entities, which are quasi-states, but they’re states in the sense of, they have authority. They have the capacity to inflict terrible pain on people. I don’t know how helpful that is, state, non-state. If they can do things to us that hurt us a lot, to me, that’s like a state doing it.”

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On Global Politics

On Global Crisis