Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

The U.S.-E.U. partnership is indispensable to ensuring a Europe whole, free, and at peace.

Europe has been at peace since 1945. But it is a restless peace thats shadowed by the threat of violence. Europe is partitioned. An unnatural line runs through the heart of a very great and a very proud nation [Germany]. History warns us that until this harsh division has been resolved, peace in Europe will never be secure. We must turn to one of the great unfinished tasks of our generationand that unfinished task is making Europe whole again.

Let's put an end to this European civil war, the existence of which we don't want to admit, and stop constantly looking at whether we are better than our neighboring country at this or the other thing. We have to be open to new things, and that includes things that have been taboo until now: France still insists that the treaties cannot be changed. Germany doesn't want any financial transfers. We have to leave these old ways of thinking behind.

I really think in the Commonwealth of Europe you should have Russia. I listed a hundred countries that would be in it and it would then be a really European United Nations.

The most important thing is that Europe has to remain united.

I believe it is important for both Russia and Europe that Belarus is a sovereign, independent state where Europeans can feel at home.

We in Europe must not indulge the illusion that we could shut ourselves away from the world if it goes to pieces, and maybe offer a bit of humanitarian aid.

You're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.

A foreign policy aimed at the achievement of total security is the one thing I can think of that is entirely capable of bringing this country to a point where it will have no security at all.

There used to be the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. There used to be Soviet troops in the GDR. And we must honestly admit that they were occupation troops, which remained in Germany after WWII under the guise of allied troops. Now these occupation troops are gone, the Soviet Union has collapsed, and the Warsaw Pact is no more. There is no Soviet threat, but NATO and U.S. troops are still in Europe. What for?

Barack Obama has been stronger on the Ukraine than all the other countries put together, and those other countries right next door to the Ukraine. I don't think we're treated fair.We're constantly, you know, sending our ships, sending our planes, doing our war games, doing other. We're reimbursed a fraction of what this is all costing.

I think disease and all the things that we treat are tied to national security in a lot of ways that we maybe don't realize or that the American people don't realize. If other countries have a chance to be stable, then that helps us. If there are ways we can prevent if there are ways we can help other countries defeat diseases, we're about to totally eradicate polio. And can you imagine? That would be so terrific.

I think NATO is obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger - much larger than Russia is today. I'm not saying Russia is not a threat. But we have other threats. We have the threat of terrorism. And NATO doesn't discuss terrorism. NATO's not meant for terrorism. NATO doesn't have the right countries in it for terrorism.

The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world.

This, for instance, is what Egon Bahr said on June 26, 1990: "If we do not now undertake clear steps to prevent a division of Europe, this will lead to Russia's isolation."Bahr, a wise man, had a very concrete suggestion as to how this danger could be averted.

I think our support for the EEC has been very half-hearted. You really cannot join any group of nations and spend all your time criticising it. The EEC is free Europe getting together. Had we had some vision like that after the first world war , we might never had the second ... my son does not have to go and fight as his father had to fight. Surely that is the most valuable thing of all, the reason for keeping Europe together.

Angela Merkel embodies Germany's 20th century fate. It is not up to me to pass judgment on her place in history, but I believe that she is the chancellor of Germany's reconciliation with Europe. She stands for a Germany for whom globalization has been a success and which accepts its role in foreign and defense policy. I thought the way she dealt with the refugees was courageous. I think she is the chancellor of reconciliation.

I can't believe that the Russians really think they're more insecure because Estonia is in NATO. And we don't have forces poised in Estonia to attack Russia.

Germany will always do the minimum to preserve the euro. Doing the minimum, though, will perpetuate the situation where the debtor countries in Europe have to pay tremendous premiums to refinance their debt. The result will be a Europe in which Germany is seen as an imperial power that will not be loved and admired by the rest of Europe - but hated and resisted, because it will perceived as an oppressive power.

I think this country and the world would be far better off if the US is not an outlaw state.

I think that what started out as a European Union originally was probably a really wonderful and world-changing idea, the idea of a kind of cooperation and interdependence between countries. But the idea that individualization would work on common ground, not on conflict, not against each other, but to find how each benefitted from the other I thought was an incredibly hopeful and positive possibility.

I think there are a lot of Republicans who recognize that investment in adolescent girls and empowering them is good for our foreign policy. When they're educated, they tend to give back more to their communities, to rise out of poverty in a way that is good for their families and their communities and ultimately, their countries. I think that we need to keep laying down these markers, and pointing out what's important to our national security and what's important around the world.

The American administration obviously has supported the dictators in the Muslim countries and the Muslims are rising, as you can see their boiling in Libya and Egypt and many other countries and they're rising up against the oppression and the Americans should stay away from trying to, if you like, put another dictator in place, and I don't think the American interest in the current time in the Middle East with their presence, rather they should withdraw their forces, they should withdraw their own personnel, this is a very insecure time for the Americans I think.

That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe

I think that the Brexit negotiations have to be a big thing that determines the democratic fight-back and galvanizes democratic Europe again against this rising tide of nationalism.