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Like so many empires before it, the Soviet Union eventually imploded and fragmented, falling victim not so much to a direct military defeat as to disintegration accelerated by economic and social strains.

— Zbigniew Brzezinski The Grand Chessboard (1997)

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More quotes by Zbigniew Brzezinski

History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy.

There is an element of delusional obsession in the French political elite's preoccupation with the notion that France is still a global power.

The Grand Chessboard (1997)

The scope of America's global hegemony is admittedly great, but its depth is shallow, limited by both domestic and external restraints.

The Grand Chessboard (1997)

To put it very simply, anyone can become an American, but only a Chinese can be Chinese - and that places an additional and significant barrier in the way of any essentially national global hegemony.

The Grand Chessboard (1997)

Russia's only real geostrategic option - the option that would give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself - is Europe.

The Grand Chessboard (1997)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Zbigniew Brzezinski (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.