US global hegemony would be much farther along if not for the annoying problem that US taxpayers don't enjoy destroying other countries-Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1998

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Zbigniew Brzezinski was National Security Advisor to Pres. Carter, 1977-81, also worked in Reagan, Bush #1. and LBJ administrations, advised JFK

May 29, 2017, “Zbigniew Brzezinski, architect of the catastrophe in Afghanistan, dead at 89,” Bill Van Auken, wsws.org

“In his [1998] book The Grand Chessboard, Brzezinski voiced his concern about the major obstacle to Washington pursuing such an aggressive drive for hegemony:

the hostility of the vast majority of the American people to war.

He wrote: “…America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America’s power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public’s sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifices (casualties even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.” [The Grand Chessboard, Basic Books, pp. 35-36]….

Brzezinski was a virulent opponent of…any challenge to the existing capitalist order from the left. In 1968, during the mass protests against the Vietnam War, he wrote in the New Republic that students should be prevented from protesting by locking them up, adding that if the protests’ “leadership cannot be physically liquidated, it can at least be expelled from the country.”…

He was among the more influential imperialist strategists in shaping a policy of attempting to offset the long-term decline in the world position of American capitalism by resorting to Washington’s unchallenged supremacy in terms of military might. This turn would lead to unending wars in the Middle East and Central Asia designed to assert undisputed American dominance in the regions containing the lion’s share of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves….

In an article published in the September-October 1997 issue of Foreign Affairs, Brzezinski argued:…

“In a volatile Eurasia, the immediate task is to ensure that no state or combination of states gains the ability to expel the United States or even diminish its decisive role.””…

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