Zbigniew Brzezinski

Zbigniew "Zbig" Kazimierz Brzeziński (/ˈzbɪɡnjɛf brəˈzɪnski/ ^ⓘ, 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, Brzezinski 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. Brzezinski 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.

Brzezinski's personal views have been described as "progressive", "international", political 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.

Brzezinski 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 Brzezinski, 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.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was born in Warsaw, Poland, on March 28, 1928 into a Catholic family 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. Brzezinski's parents were Leonia (née Roman) Brzezińska and Tadeusz Brzeziński, a Polish diplomat who was posted to Germany from 1931 to 1935; Zbigniew Brzezinski 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, 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 Brzezinski 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 Brzezinski, 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."

After attending Loyola College in Montreal, Brzezinski 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'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. Brzezinski 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-Jezioranski, 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.

Brzezinski 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.