Former President Obama’s handler, Zbigniew Brzezinski at Chatham House: “It is easier to kill a million people than to control them.”

By Marica Micallef

At Chatham House on 17^th November 2008, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor and president Obama’s Handler spoke on matters of national security, and foreign policy. This was part of his speech:

“Namely that we’re living at a time of the basic shift away from the 500 years long, global domination by the Atlantic powers. It is the countries that have been located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Let us recall them: Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, more recently the United States that have dominated world affairs and that shift now is taking us towards Asia. It is not the end of the pre-eminence of the Atlantic World, but it is now the surfacing of the Pacific region and most notably Japan, the number two economic power and China, a putative global power that are now occupying a pre-eminent place in the global hierarchy. And of course, beyond them, there is the question of India’s future development, but it is currently still in the wings. And it is also complicated by the reappearance of Russia which is something to be welcomed by the Russia which is still restless, rather unclear about his own definition, very ambivalent about his recent past and very insecure about his place in the world. And these new and old major powers face still yet another novel reality, in some respects unprecedented. And these all and new major powers face still yet another novel reality. In some respects, unprecedented. And it is that while the lethality, the lethality of their power is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historical low. I once put it rather pungently and I was flattered that the British Foreign Secretary repeated this as follows: namely in earlier times, it was easier to control a million people, literally, it was easier to control a million people, than physically, to kill a million people. Today it is infinitely easier to kill a million people than to control a million people. It is easier to kill than to control. And of course, that bears directly on the use of force particularly by societies that are culturally alien over other societies.”