Episode 4: US Cold War Endgame Strategy: Zbigniew Brzezinski, with Edward Luce

During the Cold War, two dominant émigré figures emerged in United States national security strategy making: Henry Kissinger (Republican) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Democrat). Zbigniew Brzezinski played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign, later serving as Carter’s National Security Advisor. Often described as the realist 'Yin' to Carter’s idealistic 'Yang,' Brzezinski was a trusted confidant of the President. However, his often-hawkish foreign policy stance created tensions within the Democratic Party and led to challenging relationships with colleagues in the State Department and Department of Defence. His efforts to bring down the Soviet Union earned the admiration of Ronald Reagan, whose Republican administration continued many of Brzezinski’s policies. The consequences of some of these policies, though, caused problems later.

Edward Luce is the North America Editor of the Financial Times. He published a recent biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski that sought to reclaim Brzezinski’s reputation as a leading architect of the strategy that brought the Cold War to an end without it becoming hot.

Edward Luce, Zbig. The life of Zbig Brzezinski: America's great power prophet, New York: Simon Schuster, 2025.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision; American and the Crisis of Global Power, Basic Books, 2012.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, Basic Books, 1997.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century, Collier Books, 1993.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981, New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1983.

Justin Vaïsse, Zbigniew Brzezinski: America’s Grand Strategist, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018.