For more than a year now Zbigniew Brzezinski has been gone, but his name is remembered in Russia and, perhaps, will be remembered for a long time to come. It will turn out to be cunning if you say that this will be done by everyone with a grateful and light heart. After all, if you ask a connoisseur of the history of the collapse of the USSR to name Western strategists and analysts who really accelerated this process, then Brzezinski’s name will sound first.
How did opponents remember him? Extremely dangerous because of his extraordinary intelligence. He not only possessed the analyst’s rarest innate instinct - to discern among the thousands of small things the enemy’s critically weak spot, but also the organizer's abilities and practice, actively influencing him right up to defeat.
Life has passed. Reviews about Zbigniew Brzezinski
What kind of reviews did the residents of the USA leave about him? Answer: grateful. Americans say that his knowledge and understanding of political strategies was deep and clear. The United States would not be so strong if not for Brzezinski.
How is this person evaluated in his historical homeland, in Poland? He is treated like a native person, his compatriot. The Poles received the news of his death with great regret. Brzezinski never forgot where he came from.
Reviews from Russia, of course, differ from the above. Most of them are short and malevolent. After all, political observers did not call Zbignev "the best enemy of the USSR." "Why the best?" - you ask. This refers to the well-known eastern idiom, according to which a smart enemy is more valuable than a fool friend. Moreover, the thinking older Russians agree that if an analyst of this level were in the Soviet Politburo of the 70s, the result of the Cold War might well have been different. It was a worthy opponent from the outgoing generation of thinking advisers.
Personality
By reading the memoirs of various people who had the honor of talking with him, you are convinced that the conversation left them a true intellectual pleasure. A man who is on a hierarchical ladder in a camp encumbered by people of higher authority, tough and authoritarian, he was distinguished by the fact that he was always sincerely interested in the interlocutor. Could ask: "What do you think about this?" or declare: "I completely agree with you."
This intellectual of the highest standard was the brain of US foreign policy strategies, seeing hidden prospects for others and not spraying his efforts on the secondary.
He was a true patriot of America, but also loved Poland as a country of his national identity. The strategist appreciated that the United States "opened up great opportunities for him." His creative personality, consistently developing foreign policy, always received support. At the same time, he resolutely rejected conventions and patterns. For Zbigniew Brzezinski, there were no authorities other than the only one - Pope John Paul II, whom he considered "the first and only leader of mankind."
The Warsaw Pact
The peak of his career fell on the reign of Jimmy Carter, he in 1977-1981. He was an adviser to the president on national security, in fact a second person in the state. With his bold and innovative work, he forced himself to respect the seasoned officials of the American establishment. With his arrival, work began on specific priority tasks, which in the future destroyed the structure of the Warsaw Pact. Initially, support was given to the Polish trade union Solidarity. The second step of the strategist was the tough stance of the United States, which was ahead of the curve, preventing the Soviet troops from entering according to the Hungarian scenario of 1956. And the third step of the "child mat" posed by the Politburo of the USSR was the personal merit of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the forced admission of Poland to NATO, and weight. As a result, the military-political treaty of the socialist countries ceased to exist.
“We will draw the USSR into the war according to the Vietnamese scenario!”
In December 1979, the Soviet Union made a strategic mistake by unleashing the Afghan conflict. The role of Brzezinski in his initiation was extremely active and consistent. In July 1979, the strategist wrote a memorandum to the US President calling for the USSR to be drawn into the Afghan counterpart of the Vietnam War.
It was a clear phased plan. On the one hand, the budget of the Soviet Union was weighed down by overwhelming military expenditures (the United States organized and armed mujahideen units). On the other hand, the Americans launched the mechanism of financial sanctions, depriving Moscow of doping of oil and gas dollars.
As a result of the implementation of this scenario, the economy of the Soviet Union really could not stand the imputed costs and, speaking the language of the pilots, went into a critically dangerous corkscrew.
Specialization - Foreign Policy
The ambitious child of a Polish diplomat dreamed of becoming no less than the president of his country. From childhood, he surprised others with his IQ. However, at home, he and his family, who was going to the duty stations of his father, did not have a chance to live. In Germany, he found the Nazis coming to power, and while in the USSR he heard about massive political repressions. Perhaps from then on Zbigniew made a decision for himself - to serve the victory of democracy over dictatorship. In tune with his worldview, George Orwell figuratively said this: "If you need an image of the future (totalitarian), imagine a boot stomping a person's face - forever." Brzezinski did not want to allow such a future.
When his homeland ended up in a socialist camp, he and his father — the consul general of Poland — were in Canada.
In 1950 he graduated from McGill University with a bachelor’s diploma Zbigniew Brzezinski. His biography testifies: the foreign policy began to interest the hero of our article from a young age.
The young man received the academic title of professor of political science while studying at Harvard. Brzezinski’s dissertation topic pointed to his specialization - “The totalitarian system of the USSR”. The publication in 1961 of the academic work “The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict” was a signal for specialists: in the West there was a geo-strategy that everyone would have to reckon with. The fundamental knowledge and subtle construction of the mind of this man is evidenced by his further teaching in the "forge" of the American elite, Harvard.
Rise after the falls
The son of a high-ranking respected diplomat, from a young age he learned to adequately overcome obstacles. After graduating from a Canadian university with honors, the Pole received a scholarship to study in Britain, which he could not use. There was a fatal formality: he did not have Canadian citizenship.
Zbigniew travels to the USA, where he enters Harvard, having studied in which, he becomes a professor. However, here he was faced with a surprise: one day they did not renew his contract. The leadership was not pleased with the non-cabinet character, the critical approach to authorities and the independence of the young scientist. But here he "makes lemonade out of lemon", having headed the Center for the Study of Communism Problems in New York.
Doctor of Political Science has been engaged in practical politics since 1960. At the first stage, he successfully participated in two presidential campaigns and lost in one. At first, John F. Kennedy chose him among his many candidates as his adviser. Then, in 1964, under President Lyndon Johnson, Zbigniew Brzezinski was engaged in political planning at the State Department. This made him a name in politics.
And finally, he loses in 1968, participating in the presidential campaign of Democrat Hubert Humphrey. However, defeat gives his flexible mind the opportunity to assess the situation from a different angle.
The second stage of his political career, Zbigniew implements at a completely different level. Brzezinski no longer needs to explain who is who in world politics. He convinces John Rockefeller and becomes with him the co-chair of a non-governmental body - the Trilateral Commission (government over governments), which brings together the sharks of world business, i.e. real carriers of power whose strategies the presidents follow.
Professor's books
Note that it is not in the style of Zbigniew Brzezinski to hide from the public his vision of global politics. Oddly enough, the greatness of this statesman is that he did not make secrets out of his views behind seven seals, and after a while he made them public. The world has published huge editions of his work for people interested in politics, whose consistent flawless logic of lines is fascinating. The latter circumstance gives us the opportunity to conduct an open-minded conversation about his views.
The temptation of the strategist’s opponents is to present his views as stereotyped, bursting with hatred for Russia, trying to elevate America to the absolute. Is that Zbigniew Brzezinski? Books written by him at different times testify to the dynamic evolution of his views. We list the most famous works of the professor:
- The Great Chessboard (1997);
- “The choice. World Domination and Global Leadership ”(2004);
- "One more chance. 3 Presidents and the crisis of the American power ”(2007);
- “America and the world. Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy ”(2008)
- “Strategic look. America and the global crisis ”(2012)
And this is deliberately hushed up by his critics. They are trying to label him a pro-American servant. However, you guessed it, it's a lie. The professor is not so simple, he does not speak out loud about all of his goals, only implying a lot. Those who are familiar with his books argue that it is a real pleasure to try, reading a specific work, to read between the lines.
A look into the future
The professor formulated a model not only of a unipolar world, but also of a multipolar world. And the most interesting is his vision of the world, set forth in the last two books. An interesting trend is being seen. The foreign policy strategist, in the first books seems to implement the notorious principle of “America is the captain of the universe,” essentially prepares civilization for democratic rule. In his last works, Brzezinski gives a detailed definition of world centers of power. The hegemony of the United States is no longer a question. According to the professor, only with their interaction can one optimize international politics.
However, back to his first famous work. The most frequently criticized by apologists fundamental book written by Zbigniew Brzezinski - “The Great Chessboard” - was published more than twenty years ago. And this means that in the present century the ideas of the book should not be regarded as an absolute. Naturally, they are subject to correction. However, we consider this work in more detail.
The Great Chessboard
The idea of the book is to realize the idea of a unipolar world by the United States through the use of economic, military, technological and cultural advantages. The area of realization of the geostrategic interests of the USA is the Eurasian continent. In order to concretize the area to which America will exert control, Zbigniew Brzezinski introduces the concept of the Heartland (Heart of the Earth). “Chessboard” (Eurasia), based on its theoretical conclusion, will certainly be controlled by the United States, if they control the Heartland.
Already passed the stage of this strategy is considering the collapse of the USSR Zbigniew Brzezinski. The “Great Chessboard” (Eurasia) in relation to the United States is characterized by various geostrategic zones that impede the implementation of the plan. By the way, these zones together form the Heartland. Naturally, America intends to realize its long-term interests relying on NATO forces.
The views of analyst Brzezinski on Russia (1997)
In the Heartland structure, Brzezinski considered Russia to be the most critical component. Is this a tendentious rejection of the descendant of the Polish noblemen of Muscovy? Is it not true that the above is primitive enough to characterize a world-class analyst of the first magnitude, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski. The great law of the development of civilizations is fully consistent with the analytics of the professor. He aptly compares Russia with France at different periods of history: both states at a certain stage “stuck with their brains” in imperialism: obsessive mania, guided by abstract ideas, create an empire that exalts and makes neighbors miserable. Moreover, France recovered from this disease, having really come to the conclusion that the main thing is people, not ideas. Russia, according to the professor, is still on the path to understanding this.
The greatest amount of criticism, and this is natural, is caused by the book The Great Chessboard by Zbigniew Brzezinski in the fragment where the author, as a theorist, speaks of the territorial division of Russia into three parts. Note that the apologists at the same time quote the scientist, out of context.
The crisis version of Brzezinski’s strategy
The context is that critics ignore the initial conditions of such a statement. It's about force majeure. Brzezinski suggests how to secure the world community if Russia becomes a clear and open aggressor.
The very idea of dividing is purely technocratic: raw deposits are artificially separated from industrial centers. I would like to remind critics that these plans will not come true in Russia democratic, respecting the human values of their people and people of neighboring states. A special case provided for by a meticulous professor is not at all a program of action regarding the largest country in the world. In subsequent works, Zbigniew Brzezinski discusses Russia exclusively in the context of assistance in building a democratic society.
Conclusion
The master of geopolitics passed away at the 89th year of life on May 26, 2017 in the hospital of the city of Falls Church. It is obvious that in the world there was no more competent person in this sphere than he, the executive director of the Tripartite Commission, or, as it is called, the “world government”. Obviously, in Russia alone they said: "The enemy has died." To which others replied that not everything is so simple.
For him, having comprehended many subtleties of foreign policy, the world was really predictable, like a chessboard for a grandmaster. The book of Zbigniew Brzezinski with a similar name is today the ABC of geopolitics.