Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!

“We have a large public that is very ignorant about public affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans”
―

“History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy”
―

“The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities. ”
―

“Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.”
―

tags: americans, foreign-policy, geopolitics, ignorance, populism

“A great deal of world politics is a fundamental struggle, but it is also a struggle that has to be waged intelligently.”
―

“In the technotronic society the trend would seem to be towards the aggregation of the individual support of millions of uncoordinated citizens, easily within the reach of magnetic and attractive personalities exploiting the latest communications techniques to manipulate emotions and control reason.”
―

“One has to understand what the enemy is all about: the enemy's history, the enemy's culture, the enemy's aspirations. If you understand these well, you can perhaps move towards peace.”
―

“[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant.”
―

tags: american-exceptionalism, american-people, foreign-policy, geopolitics, ignorance, populism

“Another threat, less overt but no less basic, confronts liberal democracy. More directly linked to the impact of technology, it involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled and directed society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite whose claim to political power would rest on allegedly superior scientific knowhow. Unhindered by the restraints of traditional liberal values, this elite would not hesitate to achieve its political ends by using the latest modern techniques for influencing public behavior and keeping society under close surveillance and control. Under such circumstances, the scientific and technological momentum of the country would not be reversed but would actually feed on the situation it exploits.
… Persisting social crisis, the emergence of a charismatic personality, and the exploitation of mass media to obtain public confidence would be the steppingstones in the piecemeal transformation of the United States into a highly controlled society.”
―

“The world became more aware that America-despite being the hope of many who have the personal drive and ambition to become part of the 'American dream'-is beset by serious operational challenges: a massive and growing national debt, widening social inequality, a cornucopian culture that worships materialism, a financial system given to greedy speculation, and a polarized political system”
―

“Because you can't intervene everywhere, you don't conclude you can't intervene anywhere.”
―

tags: humanitarian-intervention, interventions, libyan-war, noninterventionism

“Too rich to be relevant to the world's poor, [Europe] attracts immigration but cannot encourage imitation. Too passive regarding international security. Too self-satisfied, it acts as if its central political goal is to become the worlds most comfortable retirement home. Too set in its ways, it fears multicultural diversity”
―

“This regionalization is in keeping with the Tri-Lateral Plan which calls for a gradual convergence of East and West, ultimately leading toward the goal of one world government. National sovereignty is no longer a viable concept.”
―

“To resolve conflicts, excessive ambitions and one's own fears and aspirationis must be sacrificed.”
―

“The ongoing changes in the distribution of global power and mounting global strife make it all the more imperative that America not retreat into an ignorant garrison-state mentality or wallow in self-righteous cultural hedonism”
―

“It cannot be stressed enough that without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire [95].”
―

“Brzeziński: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army had invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the truth, kept secret up to now, is quite different: it was in fact on July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive on clandestine aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And on that very day I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my view aid was going to bring about a Soviet military intervention.
Nouvel Observateur: When the Soviets justified their intervention by claiming that they meant to counter a secret intervention by the United States in Afghanistan, no one believed them. However there was some truth in that.. You don't regret anything today?
Brzeziński: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day the Soviets officially crossed the border I wrote to President Carter roughly the following: 'We now have the opportunity to give the USSR its own Vietnam War'.
[warmonger's unrepentant admission that the U.S. overthrew the government of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan and sold it as a Soviet invasion]”
―

“The ultimate objective of American policy should be benign and visionary: to shape a truly cooperative global community, in”
―

“The outspoken president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbaev, went as far as to state publicly [..] that “any talk about the protection of Russians living in Kazakhstan reminds one of the times of Hitler, who also started off with the question of protecting Sudeten Germans.”
―

“The three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together.”
―

“The turmoil inherent in the shift from a rigidly traditional rural society to an urban one engenders an inclination to seek total answers to social dilemmas, thus causing ideologies to thrive in the industrializing society.”
―

“has observed that bin Laden in twenty of his twenty-four major speeches, both before and after 9/11, justified violence against America by citing its support for Israel.”
―

“But in this increasingly complicated geopolitical environment, an America in pursuit of a new, timely strategic vision is crucial to helping the world avoid a dangerous slide into international turmoil.”
―

“America’s political institutions and free market economy created unprecedented opportunities for ambitious and iconoclastic inventors, who were not inhibited from pursuing their personal dreams by archaic privileges or rigid social hierarchies. In”
―

The Grand Chessboard
1,799 ratings

Strategic Vision
918 ratings

Second Chance
358 ratings

America and the World
288 ratings