Zbigniew "Zbig" Kazimierz Brzeziński (, ; March 28, 1928 – May 26, 2017) was a Polish-American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981. As a scholar, Brzeziński belonged to the realist school of international relations, standing in the geopolitical tradition of Halford Mackinder and Nicholas J. Spykman,Sabine Feiner: Weltordnung durch US-Leadership? Die Konzeption Zbigniew K. Brzezinskis. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001 while elements of liberal idealism have also been identified in his outlook. Brzeziński was the primary organizer of The Trilateral Commission.Sklar, Holly. "Founding the Trilateral Commission: Chronology 1970–1977". Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management. Boston: South End Press, 1980. 604 pages. Excerpts available.
Major foreign policy events during his time in office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan); the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) with the Soviet Union; the brokering of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel; the overthrow of the US-friendly Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the start of the Iranian Revolution; the United States' encouragement of dissidents in Eastern Europe and championing of human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union; supporting the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and, ultimately, Soviet troops during the Soviet–Afghan War; and the signing of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.
Zbigniew Brzeziński's personal views have been described as "progressive", "international," politically liberal, and strongly anti-communist. He was an advocate for anti-Soviet containment, for human rights organizations, and for "cultivating a strong West." He has been praised for his ability to see "the big picture." Critics described him as hawkish or a "foreign policy hardliner" on some issues, such as Poland–Russia relations.
Zbigniew Brzeziński served as the Robert E. Osgood Professor of American Foreign Policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He frequently appeared as an expert on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC News' This Week with Christiane Amanpour, and MSNBC's Morning Joe, where his daughter, Mika Brzeziński, is co-anchor. He supported the Prague Process. His elder son, Ian, is a foreign policy expert, and his younger son, Mark, was the United States Ambassador to Poland from 2022 to 2025 and the United States Ambassador to Sweden from 2011 to 2015.
Early years
Zbigniew Brzeziński was born in Warsaw, Poland, on March 28, 1928 into a Roman Catholic szlachta family bearing the Trąby coat of arms, originally from Brzeżany, Tarnopol Voivodeship (then part of Poland, currently in Ukraine). The town of Brzeżany is thought to be the source of the family name. Brzeziński's parents were Leonia (née Roman) Brzeziński and Tadeusz Brzeziński, a Polish diplomat who was posted to Germany from 1931 to 1935; Zbigniew Brzeziński thus spent some of his earliest years witnessing the rise of the Nazis. From 1936 to 1938, Tadeusz Brzeziński was posted to the Soviet Union during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge,Gati (2013) p. 237 and was later praised by Israel for his work helping Jews escape from the Nazis.
In 1938, Tadeusz Brzeziński was posted to Montreal as a consul general. The Brzeziński family lived near the Polish Consulate-General, on Stanley Street. In 1939, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was agreed to by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; subsequently the two powers and Slovakia invaded Poland. The 1945 Yalta Conference among the Allies allotted Poland to the Soviet sphere of influence. The Second World War had a profound effect on Brzeziński, who stated in an interview: "The extraordinary violence that was perpetrated against Poland did affect my perception of the world, and made me much more sensitive to the fact that a great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle."
Academia After attending Loyola College in Montreal, Brzeziński entered McGill University in 1945 to obtain both his Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees (received in 1949 and 1950 respectively). His Master's thesis focused on the various nationalities within the Soviet Union.Brzezinski, Zbigniew (July 1950). Russo-Soviet Nationalism (M.A. thesis). McGill University. Brzeziński's plan for pursuing further studies in the United Kingdom in preparation for a diplomatic career in Canada fell through, principally because he was ruled ineligible for a scholarship he had won that was only open to British subjects. Brzeziński then attended Harvard University to work on a doctorate with Merle Fainsod, focusing on the Soviet Union and the relationship between the October Revolution, Vladimir Lenin's state, and the actions of Joseph Stalin. He received his Ph.D. in 1953; the same year, he traveled to Munich and met Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, head of the Polish desk of Radio Free Europe. He later collaborated with Carl J. Friedrich to develop the concept of totalitarianism as a way to characterize more accurately and powerfully, and to criticize the Soviets in 1956.Gati (2013) p. 208
Brzeziński was on the faculty of Harvard University from 1953 to 1960, and of Columbia University from 1960 to 1972 where he headed the Research Institute on Communist Affairs. He was Senior Research Professor of International Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.
For historical background on major events during this period, see: History of Poland: Gomułka's road to socialism (1956–1970), and 1956 Hungarian Revolution. As a Harvard professor, he argued against Dwight Eisenhower's and John Foster Dulles's policy of rollback, saying that antagonism would push Eastern Europe further toward the Soviets.Gati (2013) p. xxi The Polish protests followed by the Polish October and the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 lent some support to Brzeziński's idea that the Eastern Europeans could gradually counter Soviet domination. In 1957, he visited Poland for the first time since he left as a child, and his visit reaffirmed his judgement that splits within the Eastern bloc were profound. He developed ideas that he called "peaceful engagement". Brzeziński became a naturalized American citizen in 1958."Brzezinski, Zbigniew 1928–." In: Social networks and archival context. University of Virginia.
Very soon after Harvard awarded an associate professorship in 1959 to Henry Kissinger instead of to him, Brzeziński moved to New York City to teach at Columbia University. There he wrote Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, which focused on Eastern Europe since the beginning of the Cold War. He also taught future Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who like Brzeziński's wife Emilie was of Czech descent, and whom he also mentored during her early years in Washington.Albright, Madeleine (2003), Madam Secretary: A Memoir. Hyperion. p. 57. . . He also became a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and joined the Bilderberg Group.Gati (2013) p. 12
During the 1960 U.S. presidential elections, Brzeziński was an advisor to the John F. Kennedy campaign, urging a non-antagonistic policy toward Eastern European governments. Seeing the Soviet Union as having entered a period of stagnation, both economic and political, Brzeziński predicted a future breakup of the Soviet Union along lines of nationality (expanding on his master's thesis).
As a scholar, he developed his thoughts over the years, fashioning fundamental theories on international relations and geostrategy. During the 1950s he worked on the theory of totalitarianism. His thought in the 1960s focused on wider Western understanding of disunity in the Soviet Bloc, as well as developing the thesis of intensified degeneration of the Soviet Union. During the 1970s he proposed that the Soviet system was incapable of evolving beyond the industrial phase into the "technetronic" age.
Brzeziński continued to argue for and support détente for the next few years, publishing "Peaceful Engagement in Eastern Europe" in Foreign Affairs, and he continued to support non-antagonistic policies after the Cuban Missile Crisis on the grounds that such policies might disabuse Eastern European nations of their fear of an aggressive Germany, and pacify Western Europeans fearful of a superpower compromise along the lines of the Yalta Conference. In a 1962 book Brzeziński argued against the possibility of a Sino-Soviet split, saying their alignment was "not splitting and is not likely to split."
In 1964, Brzeziński supported Lyndon Johnson's presidential campaign and the Great Society and civil rights policies, while on the other hand he saw Soviet leadership as having been purged of any creativity following the ousting of Khrushchev. Through Jan Nowak-Jezioranski, Brzeziński met with Adam Michnik, future Polish Solidarity activist.
Brzeziński continued to support engagement with Eastern European governments, while warning against De Gaulle's vision of a "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals." He also supported the Vietnam War. In 1966, Brzeziński was appointed to the Policy Planning Council of the U.S. Department of State (President Johnson's October 7, 1966, "Bridge Building" speech was a product of Brzeziński's influence). In 1968, Brzeziński resigned from the council in protest of President Johnson's expansion of the war. Next, he became a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
For historical background on events during this period, see: Six-Day War; Prague Spring, and Socialism with a human face; Tet Offensive. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia further reinforced Brzeziński's criticisms of the right's aggressive stance toward Eastern European governments. His service to the Johnson administration, and his fact-finding trip to Vietnam, made him an enemy of the New Left.
For the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign, Brzeziński was chairman of the Humphrey's Foreign Policy Task Force.
Brzeziński called for a pan-European conference, an idea that would eventually find fruition in 1973 as the Conference for Security and Co-operation in Europe.Brzezinski, Zbigniew (January 3, 1970). "Détente in the '70s." The New Republic. p. 18. Meanwhile, he became a leading critic of both the Nixon–Kissinger détente condominium, as well as George McGovern's pacifism.Brzezinski, Zbigniew (December 16, 1968). "Meeting Moscow's Limited Coexistence." The New Leader, vol. 51, no. 24. pp. 11–13.
The Trilateral Commission
In his 1970 piece Between Two Ages: America's Role in the Technetronic Era, Brzeziński argued that a coordinated policy among developed nations was necessary in order to counter global instability erupting from increasing economic inequality. Out of this thesis, Brzeziński co-founded the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, serving as director from 1973 to 1976. The Trilateral Commission is a group of prominent political and business leaders and academics primarily from the United States, Western Europe and Japan. Its purpose was to strengthen relations among the three most industrially advanced regions of the capitalist world. In 1974, Brzeziński selected Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter as a member.
Advisor to President Carter