[A-List] Quotes from Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard"

[Richard Menec <menecraj@xxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the exchange Jim - very interesting!!

a few quotes from "The Grand Chessboard":

    "In the Cold War's final phase, a third defensive "front" -- the
southern -- appeared on Eurasia's map (see map above).  The soviet invasion
of Afghanistan precipitated a two-pronged American response: direct US
assistance to the native resistance in Afghanistan in order to bog down
theSoviet army; and a large-scale buildup of the U.S. military presence in
the persian Gulf as a deterrant to any further southward projection of
Soviet political or military power.  The United States committed itself to
the defense of the Persian Gulf region, on a par with its western and
eastern Eurasian security interests."
[Pp7, 'Hegemony of a New Type', Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives]

............................

    "The Eurasian Balkans include nine countries that one way or another fit
the foregoing description, with two others as potential candidates.  The
nine are Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia -- all of them formerly part of the defunct
Soviet Union -- as well as Afghanistan.  The potential additions to the list
are Turkey and Iran, both of them much more politically and economically
viable, both active contestants for regional influence within the Eurasian
Balkans, and thus both significant geostrategic players in the region.  At
the same time, both are potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts.
If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of
the region would become unmanageable, while efforts to restrain regional
domination by russia could even become futile."
[Pp125, "The Ethnic Cauldron", Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives]

...........................

    "Although distant, the United States with its stake in the maintenance
of geopolitical pluralism in post-Soviet Eurasia, looms in the background as
an increasingly important if indirect player, clearly interested not only in
developing the region's resources but also in preventing Russia form
exclusively dominating the region's geopolitical space.  In so doing America
is not only pursuing its larger Eurasian strategic goals but is also
representing its own growing economic interest, as well as that of Europe
and the Far East, in gaining unlimited access to this hitherto closed area."
    "Thus, at stake in the conundrum are geopolitical power, access to
potentially great wealth, the fulfillment of national and/or religious
missions, and security.  The particular focus of the contest, however, is on
access........."
[Pp139, "The Eurasian Balkans", Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives]



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Craven" <omahkohkiaayo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "a-list" <a-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 11:14 AM
Subject: [A-List] Brezinski Interview: USSR in Afghanistan


GIVING THE SOVIETS "THEIR OWN" VIETNAM:

INTERVIEW OF ZBIGNIEW BREZINSKI National Security Adviser in the Carter
Administration

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs
["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the
Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this
period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You
therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to
the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army
invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until
now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President
Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the
pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going
to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But
perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to
provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we
knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they
intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in
Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of
truth. You don't regret anything today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the
effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to
regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote
to President Carter: "We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its
Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost
10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a
conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of
the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [intégrisme],
having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the
collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of
Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic
fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to
Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a
rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading
religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in
common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan
militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more
than what unites the Christian countries.

[This interview was published in French in Le Nouvel Observateur (France),
Jan 15-21, 1998, but it is believed not included in the edition sent to the
United States. Translation from original French by Bill Blum, author of
"Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II" and
"Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower".]

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