Brzezinski’s death at 89 years of age has generated a load of propaganda and disinformation, all of which serves one interest group or another or the myths that people find satisfying. I am not an expert on Brzezinski, and this is not an apology for him. He was a Cold Warrior, as essentially was everyone in Washington during the Soviet era.
For 12 years Brzezinski was my colleague at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where I occupied the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy. When I was elected to that chair, CSIS was a part of Georgetown University. However, the president of Georgetown Univerity was one of those liberals who hated Henry Kissinger, who was also our colleague, and the university president also hated Ronald Reagan for his rhetoric, not for his deeds about which the Georgetown president was uninformed. So I also was unwelcome. Whatever I was worth to CSIS, Kissinger was worth more, and CSIS was not going to give up Henry Kissinger.
Therefore the strategic research institute split from Georgetown University. Brzezinski stayed with CSIS.
When my 1971 book, Alienation and the Soviet Economy, which had circulated clandestinely inside the Economic Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in mimeographed form for years, was republished in 1990 with an introduction by University of California, Berkeley, Professor Aaron Wildavsky, Brzezinski, along with Robert Conquest and two members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, provided cover endorsements for my book. Brzezinski wrote: “Professor Roberts’ explanation of Soviet economic development is timely, and it fills a noticeable void in the existing literature. The book is beneficial reading for experts and non-experts alike who wish to understand the theoretical Marxian framework within which the Soviet economy grew and declined.”
I quote his endorsement for two reasons. One is to show up front that I might be biased in my account of Brzezinski. The other is to establish that both Brzezinski and I did not regard the Soviet Union as a long-term threat. I expected the Soviet economy to fail, which it did, and Brzezinski expected the Soviet Union to break up along nationality lines, which it did under Washington’s supervision. Although we were both Cold Warriors—I was a member of the Committee on the Present Danger—both of us favored a peaceful, not a war or conflict resolution of the Cold War. Brzezinski was most certainly not a Neoconservative determined to remove Russia as a constraint on American unilateralism. Brzezinski, as National Security Advisor to President Carter, did not prevent SALT 2, which the Carter Administration honored despite the refusal of the US Senate to ratify it.
Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1928. His father was a Polish diplomat posted to Germany and the Soviet Union. In 1938 Brzezinski’s father was posted to Montreal, Canada, as Consul General. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Yalta Conference in which Churchill and FDR assigned Poland to the “Soviet sphere of influence” resulted in Brzezinski growing up in Canada where he was educated. Subsequently, he obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University and became a professor at that university. Brzezinski has all the conspiracy marks against him. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderberg Group. Fortunately for me, when I was nominated for membership in the Council on Foreign Relations, I was blackballed.
Brzezinski being Polish and his wife also being Eastern European is enough to explain his animosity toward Russia. However, Brzezinski was not a warmonger. He was an advisor to Hubert Humphrey’s presidential campaign, advocated de-escalation of US involvement in the Vietnam war and resigned from a US State Department position in protest to Washington’s expansion of the Vietnam war.
Simultaneously, he opposed George McGovern’s pacifism.
In my opinion, for what it is worth, Brzezinski wanted to make sure that America held on long enough for the Soviet Union to collapse from its internal contradictions. Brzezinski did not seek to impose American world hegemony. This is a neoconservative goal, not a Cold Warrior’s goal. As President Reagan emphasized, the point of “winning” the Cold War was to end it, not to achieve hegemony over the other party. Brzezinski’s strategy as National Security Advisor toward luring the Soviets into Afghanistan was to weaken the Soviet Union and, thereby, hasten an end to the Cold War.
These are the facts as I experienced them. If I am correct, the truth is different from what we are hearing both from the Russian and Western media, both of which portray Brzezinski as not only evil in wanting to destroy the Soviet Union, but also as the Cold Warrior who created the Cold War, a war that had begun three decades prior to Brzezinski’s rise as National Security Advisor.
It is ironic that Brzezinski’s approach to the Soviet Union is identical to Russia’s approach to the West today. Brzezinski preferred in place of Nixon/Kissinger detente to emphasize international law and human rights. This is Putin’s approach today toward Washington and Washington’s NATO vassals.
As I recall, Brzezinsky wanted to use ideas, like V in V for Vendetta, against the Soviets and not military force. This, if memory serves, was the difference between Brzezinski and the military/security complex, which preferred force, and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who preferred arms control.
I was born into The Marrix. It took many decades, insider experience, and fortuitous experiences for me to escape. Brzezinski might have been one of the fortuitous events. I remember him telling me that as National Security Advisor he was awakened in the middle of the night with the message that a couple hundred Soviet ICBMs were on their way to America. Before he could clear his mind, he was told that it was several thousand ICBMs on their way to destroy America. As the futility of a response hit him, a third message reached him that it was all a mistake from a training exercise somehow being transferred into the early warning network.
In other words, Brzezinski understood how easy it was for mistakes to launch a nuclear holocaust. He wanted to end the Cold War for the same reason that Ronald Reagan wanted to end the Cold War. To make Brzezinsky and Reagan the villians, as the left-wing does, when the real villians are the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes that have convinced Russia that Washington is preparing a nuclear first strike on Russia is a form of ideological idiocy.
But idiocy in the West is what we live with. The question is: how much longer can we survive our idiocy?
I think that the “Soviet Threat,” the basis for the Cold War, was a hoax. It was created by the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us to no effect. The patriotic war movies, the patriotic Memorial Days and July 4ths with emotional thanks to those who died “saving our freedoms,” which were never in danger from the Japanese and Germans, only from our own government, succeeded in brainwashing even National Security Advisors. Little wonder the insouciance of the American population today.
The Cold War was an orchestration of the military/security complex, and there are many victims. Brzezinsky was a victim as the Cold War was his life. JFK was a victim as he lost his life to it. The Vietnamese, who died in the millions, were victims The photo of the naked young Vietnamese girl fleeing down the road in terror from the American napham behind her made us aware that the Cold War had many innocent victims. The Soviet troops sent to Afghanistan were victims as were the Afghans themselves.
The Soviet Threat removed itself when hardline communists arrested Soviet President Gorbachev. This ill-conceived intervention collapsed the Soviet Union. With the Soviet Threat removed, the US military/security complex no longer had a justification for its massive budget.
Treading water while looking for a new justification for bleeding the American taxpayer, the military/security complex had President Clinton declare the US to be the World Policeman and to destroy Yugoslavia in the name of “human rights.” With Israeli and neoconservative input, the military/security complex used 9/11 to create the “Muslin Terrorist Threat.” This hoax has now murdered, maimed, dispossessed, and displaced millions of Muslims in seven countries.
Despite 16 years of Washington’s wars against countries ranging from North Africa to Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, the “Muslim threat” does not suffice to justify the $1.1 trillion US military/security annual budget. Consequently, the Russian Threat has been resurrected.
The Muslim Threat was never a danger to the US. It is only a danger to Washington’s European vassal states, who had to accept millions of Muslim refugees from Washington’s wars. However, the newly created Russian Threat is a threat to every American as well as to every European.
Russia can bite back. For a quarter century, Russia has watched Washington prepare for a paralyzing nuclear strike on Russia. Recently, the Russian High Command announced that the Russian military has concluded that Washington does intend a surprise nuclear strike against Russia.
This dire Russian announcement received no western press coverage. No high official of any Western government, Trump included, called Putin to give reassurances that no such attack on Russia was being planned.
So, what happens next time when a false alarm, such as the one Brzezinski received, is received by his counterpart in Moscow or the National Security Council? Will the animosities resurrected by the evil US military/security complex result in the Russians or the US believing the false signal?
The insouciant populations of the West, including the members of the governments, do not appreciate that they are living on the edge of nuclear destruction.
The very few of us who alert you are dismissed as “Russian agents,” “anti-semites,” and “conspiracy theorists.” When you hear a source called a “Russian agent,” an “anti-semite,” or a “conspiracy theorist,” you had better listen to them. These are those in the know who accept arrow slings in order to tell you the truth.
The most important truth of our time is that the world lives on the knife-edge of the American military/security complex’s need for an enemy in order to keep profits flowing. The brutal fact is this: For the sake of its profits, the American military/security complex has subjected the entire world to the risk of nuclear Armageddon.
We would like to ask you to consider a small donation to help our team keep working. We accept no advertising and rely only on you, our readers, to keep us digging the truth on history, global politics, and international relations.
The Democratic Party has moved from being what you might call a reluctant war party to an aggressive war party with its selection of Hillary Clinton as its presumptive presidential nominee. With minimal debate, this historic change brings full circle the arc of the party’s anti-war attitudes that began in 1968 and have now ended in 2016.Since the Vietnam War, the Democrats have been viewed as the more peaceful of the two major parties, with the Republicans often attacking Democratic candidates as “soft” regarding use of military force. But former Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear that she ...
Since terrorism’s tragedy is again in the news, it is timely to revisit perhaps one of the biggest acts of terrorism in modern history – the illegal invasion and destruction – ongoing – of Iraq.March 20th marked the thirteenth anniversary of an action resulting in the equivalent of a Paris, Brussels, London 7th July 2005, often multiple times daily in Iraq ever since. As for 11th September 2001, there has frequently been that death toll and heart break every several weeks, also ongoing.America and Britain have arguably engaged in and generated the legacy of one of the longest recorded attacks ...
As the Second World War advanced from its early stages, the United States was assessing which sections of the earth it would hold conquest over. American planners had to remain patient, however. A seemingly endless string of conquests for the Nazis had astonished the world – particularly those in the US – and led to Adolf Hitler being crowned as “the new Napoleon”.In the summer of 1942, under Hitler’s domineering command of the military, the Germans controlled vast swathes of Europe – from Warsaw to Oslo to Paris, and eastwards onto Athens, Kiev and Sevastopol. It was one major victory ...
Note: We are republishing this essay by S. Brian Willson describing the true history of genocide in the United States which stands in stark contrast to the myth of Thanksgiving because of its popularity with readers and its educational value.The Defining and Enabling Experience of Our “Civilization” As we again plan to celebrate what US “Americans”call Thanksgiving, let us pause for a moment of reflection. Let us recognize that accounts of the first Thanksgiving are mythological, and that the holiday is actually a grotesque celebration of our arrogant ethnocentrism built on genocide.Native Americans in the Caribbean greeted their 1492 European invaders ...
In this exclusive interview, Prof Peter Kuznick speaks of: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagazaki; US crimes and lies behind the Vietnam war, and what was really behind that inhumane invasion; why the US engaged a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and how that war and the mainstream media influences the world today; the interests behind the assassinations of President Kennedy; US imperialism towards Latin America, during the Cold War and today, under the false premise of War on Terror and War on Drugs.Edu Montesanti: Professor Peter Kuznick, thank you so very much for granting me this interview. In ...
Britain is gripped by fear, panic and anger, after being struck by three terror attacks in the space of three months. Innocent men, women and children have been killed in the terror rampage, filling many homes with tragedy and despair. Martial law has practically been declared in many regions of the country, with troops now being a common site on the streets of Royal Britannia. Many are looking for someone or something to blame, as rage is increasingly triumphing over reason. Lost in all this hysteria however, there sits a glaring connection that needs to be illuminated: the connection between these ...
In British mainstream commentary, the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Slobodan Milosevic’s Yugoslavia is seen as a ‘humanitarian intervention’. Tony Blair still receives much praise for coming to the defence of the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, whose plight was surely serious as they were subject to increasingly brutal abuses by the Yugoslav army towards the end of 1998 and early 1999. Yet the NATO bombing that began in March 1999 had the effect of deepening, not preventing, the humanitarian disaster that Milosevic’s forces inflicted on Kosovo. The bulk of the atrocities committed by Yugoslav forces took place after the NATO ...
Media narrative: Hateful protestors stormed the Macedonian parliament after an ethnic Albanian Talat Xhaferi was elected speaker for the first time.Truth: Protestors stormed the parliament because Xhaferi was declared speaker in an illegal, unconstitutional manner as part of an ongoing coup d'état. It had nothing whatsoever to do with his ethnicity.Even though Xhaferi was "elected" in an irregular manner, the US and EU have already stated they recognize his appointment. This now paves the way for ethnic Albanian parties and the smaller of two main Macedonian parties (Social Democrats) to proclaim a government without the constitutionally required go-ahead from the President of the Republic.The latter has defied ...
The World of ArabsThe world of Arabs (the WoA), as a distinctive part of the globe, is of extreme significance for both global politics and the global economy. On the other hand, this region is featured by slow democratic development, political instability, religious extremism (Islamic fundamentalism), and many reasons for long-time inter-ethnic conflicts especially on the Israeli-Arab relations and regional insecurity. It is quite obvious that the WoA needs comprehensive political, social, and economic reforms which the Arab Spring’s protesters clearly requested in 2010−2013. The crucial issues of reforms are about national development and governance, a succession of political authority, ...
American capitalism is based on plunder. With the continental USA plundered, American capitalism hoped to continue enriching itself by plundering Russia as it did under Yeltsin, carefully including the Russian “Atlanticist Integrationists” in the spoils in order to have support from the liberal, progressive forces in Russia for stripping Russia of its assets. But Putin more or less put a halt to the American/Israeli rape of Russia, although it still continues through the neoliberal economics that Harvard brainwashed into the Russian central bank and economics profession. Brainwashed Russian economists are the main reason Washington is able to punish a powerful ...
The Cold War 1.0It is a pure historical fact that “in a sharp reversal of its withdrawal from Europe after 1918, after the end of World War II Washington employed all available tools of public and cultural diplomacy to influence the hearts and minds of Europeans”[1] as a strategy of the US-led Cold War policy against the USSR,[2] and after 1991 against Russia up today. Undoubtedly, the US succeeded after 1990 to transform herself into a sole global military-political hegemonic power – an unprecedented case in the world’s history.[3]It is usually and generally considered that the end of the USSR ...
Dear Readers, some of you are pushing me to continue with the Las Vegas shooting story while others are asking to know what to make of the release of files pertaining to President Kennedy’s assassination. I appreciate that you are interested and are unsatisfied with official explanations.My answer is that we already know, thanks to exhaustively researched books such as James W. Douglass’ JFK and the Unspeakable (Simon & Schuster, 2008), far more than is in the released files. My answer is also that it doesn’t matter what we know or what the facts are, the official story will never be changed. ...
Remember NATO's aggression on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from March 24th to June 10th, 1999 when several principles and articles of the Charter of United Nations were blatantly violated by the NATO's gangsters led by the US' bandits.Serbia is the only country in the whole world that was bombarded by Germany (1941), the US/UK (1944), and NATO (1999).Here, you can see a basic photo collection of the event:PHOTO COLLECTIONOrigins of images: Facebook, Twitter, Wikimedia, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Imageinjection, Public Domain & Pinterest.Read our Disclaimer/Legal Statement!Donate to Support UsWe would like to ask you to consider a small donation to ...
This essay is inspired by Professor James Petras’s article, describing that the US never wins wars despite trillions of investments in her war budget and obvious military superiority.Professor Petras is of course right, the United States is currently engaged in seven bloody wars around the globe (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya) and has not been winning one, including WWII. The question is: Why is that?To these wars, you may want to add the totally destructive and human rights adverse war that literally slaughters unarmed civilians, including thousands of children, in an open-air prison, Gaza, the US proxy war ...
A quick review of Ukraine, Zbig’s Grand Chessboard – How the West Was Checkmated is simple – this amazing work should be in everyone’s reading library. Anyone who cares to understand the situation of what has happened, and is happening in Ukraine needs to read this book. It covers the history of the dissolution of the USSR, the resulting creation of Ukraine, and the history of the U.S.’ attempts through various government and non-government organizations (e.g. Soros) towards the first failed colour revolution (Orange, 2004), then on towards the second attempt resulting in the successful installation of the noenazi puppet ...
Early in 1989, China was stirring. A decade of groundbreaking reforms inspired by Deng Xiaoping had brought the moribund economy to life and freed the nation from the ideological shackles imposed by radical Maoists during the cataclysmic Cultural Revolution. Almost everything seemed possible, as Deng proteges Hu Yaobang and then Zhao Ziyang led policymaking on a day-to-day basis.But the changes sweeping China had its dark undersides. Large-scale economic reforms also meant expanded corruption opportunities, which many officials exploited. And Chinese who “got rich first,” under the Dengist dispensation, opened a rapidly expanding wealth gap with fellow citizens. Discontent simmered dangerously.The ...
There was a speech that the smug Harvard neoconservative Graham Allison presented at the US aristocracy’s TED Talks on 20 November 2018, and which is titled on youtube as “Is war between China and the US inevitable?” It currently has 1,217,326 views. The transcript is here. His speech said that the US must continue being the world’s #1 power, or else persuade China’s Government to cooperate more with what America’s billionaires demand. He said that the model for the US regime’s supposed goodness in international affairs is The Marshall Plan after the end of World War II. He ended his ...
Thankfully humanity is freed from the scourge of a third Hillary and Bill Clinton crime family co-presidency – she in the lead role with her finger on the nuclear trigger as US military commander-in-chief, perhaps eager to squeeze it.Newsweek magazine jumped the gun, printing a special edition, distributing it to outlets before November 8 – Hillary on the cover below the heading “MADAM PRESIDENT.”Shades of November 3, 1948, the Chicago Tribune headlining “DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN.” A beaming President HST held up a copy of the broadsheet, saying: “That ain’t the way I heard it!”Like polls predicted a Hillary victory this ...
Projections and Projective IdentificationsMartti Ahtisaari, the Chairman Emeritus of the International Crisis Group (ICG), a globalist think tank sponsored by the US, asserted that all Serbs were “guilty as a nation” for seeking to prevent the secessionist/separatist Greater Albania movement launched by Albanian ultra-nationalist terrorists in 1998. He told the Serbian Kosovo negotiating team that “you are guilty as a nation.” This is an example of the racist concept of “collective guilt” typically applied to a group of people based on shared characteristics to punish that group. It is one of the most primitive and barbaric human conceptions ever devised. ...
There are more questions than answers to the Crimean ‘question’.After more than two decades belonging to an independent Ukraine, the Crimean peninsula has become part of Russia, which has thereby gained an extra 27,000 km2 of territory and over two million new citizens. Ukraine and the West see this unprecedented event as annexation and a sign of the Kremlin’s neo-imperial ambitions. To countries not directly involved in the Ukrainian crisis, it is a dangerous violation of the Eurasian status quo that could cause widespread destabilisation in the area, while in Moscow’s eyes it is ‘the return of Crimea and Sevastopol ...
In other words, Brzezinski understood how easy it was for mistakes to launch a nuclear holocaust. He wanted to end the Cold War for the same reason that Ronald Reagan wanted to end the Cold War. To make Brzezinsky and Reagan the villians, as the left-wing does, when the real villians are the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes that have convinced Russia that Washington is preparing a nuclear first strike on Russia is a form of ideological idiocy.
