BOOK REVIEW: Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet by Edward Luce
Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
Reviewed by: Jean-Thomas Nicole
The Reviewer: Jean-Thomas Nicole is a Policy Advisor with Public Safety Canada. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policies or positions of Public Safety Canada or the Canadian government.
Review –Edward Luce’s Zbig is a well-written and deeply researched biography that captures the life, intellect, and enduring influence of Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017) —one of the most consequential architects of U.S. foreign policy in the twentieth century. As National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter, Brzezinski was instrumental in shaping U.S. Cold War strategy, from normalizing relations with China to supporting the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation and further hastening the collapse of the Soviet political system of domination, thus ending the Cold War peacefully.
Edward Luce is the Financial Times’s chief US commentator and columnist. He is the known author of three other well-reviewed books: The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017), Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2012), and In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (2007). He appears regularly on CNN, NPR, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and the BBC.
Luce has an undeniable talent for distilling complex global dynamics into accessible narratives. In Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet, he combines rigorous research with compelling storytelling, making this book both informative and engaging.
Edward Luce’s biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski is grounded in a rich array of primary sources that lend depth and authenticity to the narrative. Among the most significant are Brzezinski’s own writings, diaries, and his published books.
In addition to Brzezinski’s, Luce draws extensively on declassified government documents from the Carter administration and other periods of Brzezinski’s public service. These include National Security Council memoranda, diplomatic cables, and internal policy papers that shed light on the decision-making processes behind key foreign policy initiatives.
This biography is enriched and animated by interviews with about a hundred of Brzezinski’s contemporaries, many of them repeatedly. Some of them have since passed away. Not every observation is cited in the endnotes, but their recollections suffuse the book. Luce also incorporates material from interviews with Brzezinski himself, conducted over the course of several years. These interviews offer a personal dimension to the biography, allowing Brzezinski to reflect on his legacy, clarify his positions, and respond to critics. Furthermore, Luce consulted archival materials housed at institutions such as the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, Harvard University, and Columbia University, where Brzezinski taught and maintained professional correspondence. These archives include personal letters, lecture notes, and unpublished manuscripts that enrich the biographical portrait.
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Luce traces Brzezinski’s journey from his early years in Poland, shaped by the trauma of war and totalitarianism, to his ascent as a Cold War intellectual and Washington insider. Brzezinski’s personal history and Polish identity—marked by the Second World War, forced emigration and further ideological struggle with the Communist system—deeply informed his worldview. As he once warned, “We have a large public that is very ignorant about world affairs, and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans.” This concern for realism, power, informed leadership, and strategic clarity permeated his career.
What sets Zbig apart is Luce’s ability to contextualize Brzezinski’s ideas within the broader arc of 20th-century geopolitics. He contrasts Brzezinski’s idealistic realism with the more transactional realpolitik and unflattering portrait of Henry Kissinger, highlighting their intellectual rivalry and differing visions for America’s role in the world. Brzezinski believed in the moral imperative of American leadership, but he was also a hard-nosed strategist. As he put it, “The Soviet Union could not sustain its empire indefinitely. Its internal contradictions were too great. Our job was to accelerate the contradictions.”
Luce does not shy away from Brzezinski’s contradictions as well—his hawkish tendencies, his controversial alliances, and his complex legacy. Yet, he makes a compelling case that Brzezinski’s strategic foresight, particularly regarding the vulnerabilities of the Soviet system, was instrumental in hastening the end of the Cold War.
In that regard, Zbig demonstrates rightfully and thoroughly that Brzezinski’s astute insight was based, first and foremost on an intimate closeness and understanding with the Russian language and historical culture; not only he spoke Russian fluently, he also perceived it, not in isolation, but rather within the larger Eastern European context, particularly informed by his own deep-rooted, one might say adversarial or wounded, Catholic Polishness’ perspective.
Consequently, Brzezinski identified the nationalities problem as the Soviet Union’s Achilles’ heel. In other words, the Soviet Union was not a monolith; resentment of Russian colonialism could be enlisted to hasten the East Bloc’s demise. It was an insight that eluded many, including Kissinger and most of Brzezinski’s colleagues in the Carter administration. Brzezinski’s impact was aided and further amplified by his friendship with the Polish-born pope John Paul II.
In his view, the USSR was in fact a shell of itself that was in the process of degenerating. All it needed was a helpful push. Churchill’s “iron curtain” had turned out not to have been made of hard metal, Brzezinski argued; it was more like a “semi-permeable membrane.”
Though the road would be long and victory was nowhere in sight at the time, Russia’s “civilizing role” in Eastern Europe could be converted by the West into a boomerang against Moscow, Brzezinski argued. Moscow’s Achilles’ heel was its continuing failure to stamp out non-Russian nationalisms. By doing so, Brzezinski provided the Carter Administration with a strategic framework on how to outplay the USSR.
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Brzezinski’s reputation for being prophetic—a term he spurned—owes as much to the fact that he correctly set out why the USSR would fail, not just that it would fail. Much as with the USSR as a whole, perestroika’s Achilles’ heel was the non-Russian nationalities. The mask of Marxist-Leninism could not forever obscure the Great Russian chauvinism beneath.
Brzezinski’s tenure as National Security Advisor coincided with a period of intense geopolitical flux. The détente of the 1970s was giving way to renewed tensions, and Brzezinski’s assertive posture marked a departure from the more conciliatory tone of previous administrations. He was a key architect of the Carter Doctrine, which declared that the United States would use military force if necessary to defend its interests in the Persian Gulf—a policy that foreshadowed future American involvement in the Middle East; just look at the news coming from the region nowadays.
Brzezinski’s support for the Afghan mujahideen, while controversial in hindsight, was rooted in his belief that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan represented a critical opportunity to weaken Moscow’s grip on its periphery. His strategic calculus was clear: by turning Afghanistan into the Soviet Union’s Vietnam, the U.S. could exploit the internal contradictions of the Soviet system. This policy, though effective in the short term, also had long-term consequences, including the rise of Islamist militant groups in the region.
Brzezinski’s approach to China was equally transformative. He played a pivotal role in orchestrating the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China, a move that reshaped the global balance of power. His vision of a triangular diplomacy—balancing relations among the U.S., China, and the Soviet Union—was a hallmark of his strategic thinking.
Brzezinski’s influence continues to shape U.S. foreign policy today. His emphasis on the geopolitical importance of Eurasia remains central to strategic thinking, especially amid renewed tensions with Russia and the rise of China. His advocacy for NATO expansion and support for Eastern European democracies laid the groundwork for the post-Cold War security order.
He also foresaw the risks of unchecked American dominance. “America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last,” he wrote, warning of the dangers of a unipolar world. Luce revisits this theme to show how Brzezinski’s vision of a cooperative, multipolar global order is more relevant than ever in today’s fragmented international landscape.
Brzezinski’s legacy is especially visible in the West’s support for Ukraine and its resistance to Russian aggression—an extension of his lifelong commitment to countering imperialism and promoting democratic values. His strategic vision, rooted in both moral conviction and geopolitical calculation, anticipated many of the challenges the world still faces today: China’s challenges to U.S.-lead international order, Russian imperialism in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and Iran’s nuclear pursuits in a volatile Middle East.
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