Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

In this day and age, the U.S. and Europe do not have the luxury of focusing solely on a single region.

I don't believe, in the 21st century, in the balance of power system. This is a European idea of the 19th and 20th centuries.

We feel no isolation. But, having said that, I want to emphasise in particular that we do not want to go to extremes and abandon the European and American directions in our foreign economic cooperation.

I don't think Russia is setting this as a goal; I don't think this should be Russia's goal. I think even the United States doesn't need to be a superpower. China doesn't need to be a superpower. It's a different world.

Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.

We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything.

The U.S. cannot go it alone simply when it is convenient.

The most tragic paradox of our time is to be found in the failure of nation-states to recognize the imperatives of internationalism.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

Today we will find most nations to be both our partners and our adversaries—sometimes simultaneously.

Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.

I'm in favour of a multi-polar world. I believe that every country has the right to defend its own interests.

In a world in which the United States does less, whatever set of calculations, other countries will tend to calculate - to move in one of two ways. Either they will assuage or, to use a more loaded term, appease the strongest power in the neighborhood with all the consequences of that, or they will determine to take matters into their own hands.

Europeans must shed their illusions about what they can accomplish in the world on their own. Loose talk about resurrecting a multi-polar world is just that - loose talk.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, you know, who was one of the authors of U.S. dominance, he's changed his mind, you know, and he's saying now we've got to learn to cooperate with other world powers. We are not the bully in the schoolyard here.We've got to deal with them. And that's my feeling.

I don't like a bipolar or a unipolar world. I like a multipolar world but on many occasions people have been surprised that South Africa has not seemed, internationally as well as internally, to take a decision that affirms the true values of your Constitution and the vision of those who were there at the beginning - Madiba himself and others.

My main concern is with the world order

For future geopolitical stability and global prosperity, we need to build a culture of greater trust and understanding between China, America and the rest of the world.

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

Sometimes I say in France: Europe is no more the center of the world - and the United States, neither. We have other key players on the international stage: China, of course; but also Brazil, India and South Africa. And their influence is very, very strong.

International politics is no longer a zero-sum game but a multi-dimensional arena where cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously. Gone is the age of blood feuds. World leaders are expected to lead in turning threats into opportunities.

To contrast national solidarity and international cooperation as two opposites seems foolish to me.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

The world would be better off with multiple superpowers. When Communist USSR was a superpower, the world was better off.

Cooperation and collaboration among nations and countries can help in the process of development of promoting welfare as well as bringing peace and stability.