1967 Zbigniew Brzezinski Changing Foreign Policy Corvallis

1967 Zbigniew Brzezinski Changing Foreign Policy Corvallis Gazzette Times

Clipped from

Corvallis Gazette-Times

Corvallis, Oregon
07 Sep 1967, Thu \u2022 Page 4

The controversial "for
background only, rule" under which, government officials frequently hold
non-quotable briefings for newsmen is not as iron-clad as its image. A speech
we heard delivered last May in Washington D C. at a State Department
backgrounder now appears in The Bulletin, a government publication on foreign
policy.

Under the title, "The Implications of Change for United States
Foreign Policy" Zbigniew Brzezinski, a member of the State
Department's Policy Planning Council, analyzed five major changes in
international politics. These changes are not obvious because they are slow,
according to Brzezinski, but he believes their cumulative impact is most
important and fundamentally alter the nature of international relations in our
day.

The first change cited by the State Department official involves the wane
in ideological conflicts among the more developed nations of the world.
Nuclear weapons have necessitated greater and greater restraint in the
relations among states. Ideological attitudes are giving way to
problem-solving, engineering approaches to social change. In addition, communism
is dead, said Brzezinski, "in the sense that it is no longer capable
of mobilizing unified global support. On the contrary, it is increasingly
fragmented by conflicts among constituent units and parties."
Revolutionary movements in different parts of the world now relate themselves
more specifically to local radical traditions and try to exploit local
opportunities, he continued.
The second change, Brzezinski writes, is closely connected with the
first and the result is the decline of violence among the more developed
nations. He believes that we would have been at war with Russia in the
course of the last 20 years had it not been for the restraining influences of
nuclear weapons. This restraint is still largely absent insofar as relations
among the less developed states are concerned.

The third generalization is the fading supremacy of the
nation-state on the international scene. This change has been Induced by
economic development, the technological revolution and changes in the means of
communication all of which cause people to identify themselves more and more
with wider, more global interests.

The emergence of the United States as a preponderant world power is responsible
for the fourth major change. Brzezinski points to our success in
staring down Khrushchev in Cuba and the protection of our interests in the
Dominican Republic and in the Congo. Moscow, he asserts, did not dare to react
even in the area of its regional domination: Berlin.

"Increasingly," the State Department official notes, "the U.S.
way of life, our styles, our patterns of living, are setting the example.
Today, if there is a creative society in the world, it is the United States in
the sense that everyone, very frequently without knowing it, is imitating
it." But Brzezinski believes this leadership only make

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