Zbigniew Brzezinski

Life & Legacy

Zbigniew "Zbig" Kazimierz Brzeziński ( , Polish: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf kaˈʑimjɛʐ‿bʐɛˈʑij̃skʲi] ; 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, while elements of liberal idealism have also been identified in his outlook. Brzeziński was the primary organizer of The Trilateral Commission.
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.