Zbigniew Brzezinski Quotes

The Cold War didn't end. It was won.

The Cold War began with the division of Europe. It can only end when Europe is whole.

Historians don't really like to carry on speculative debates, but you could certainly argue that the likelihood of a Soviet invasion of Western Europe was extremely, extremely low.

Moreover, the accomplishment of Russia's aims has been greatly simplified by the fact that we have heretofore offered the world no practical antidote for the Russian poison.

Soviet expansionism in Europe, the battle for control of China, and the 1950 invasion of South Korea would shatter once-euphoric dreams of post-war cooperation with the Kremlin.

The last time you and I sat across a conference table in Potsdam [July-August, 1945], I must confess Sir, I held you in very low regard. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt. I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man have saved Western Civilization.

Containment was merely appeasement on the installment plan.

Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without reference to the Soviet Union, a good society in our own countries? But no, we were all — in one way or another — obsessed with the bloody Soviet Union, which was a disaster…

Buy the Grace of God, America won the Cold War. The Cold War didn't end--It was won.

After World War II, we awoke to find our wartime ally, Stalin, had emerged as a greater enemy than Germany or Japan. Stalin's empire stretched from the Elbe to the Pacific.

One of my American heroes is the great former U.S. diplomat George Kennan.

The Cold War has ended for America.

"World War III, was the Cold War".

When we refused to be forced out of Berlin, we demonstrated to the people of Europe that with their cooperation we would act, and act resolutely, when their freedom was threatened.

I'm a child of the Cold War. You do not say, "Oh, my God, there are Russian planes, so I'm going to cede the field." I mean, what kind of world would we have had if the United States had done that for 60 years?

I thought that in general we in the United States were too optimistic in believing that the Soviets might alter what had been for a long time, as a matter of fact for centuries, fundamental Russian policies in respect to the rest of the world.

I think NATO is a Cold War product. I think NATO historically should have shut up shop in 1990 along with the Warsaw Pact; unfortunately, it didn't.

Nineteen-seventy-nine had been a year of American setbacks around the globe. Before the year began, Cuban troops were already roaming Angola, and a pro-Communist regime ruled Ethiopia.

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

Dean Acheson was one of the very best and brightest of the men who ever came to Washington.

We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

Almost everything Truman did in foreign affairs I approve of.

People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.

The Cold War was over long before it was officially declared dead.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.