Brzezinski addresses Russian past, present and future policies

As a crowd of jostling professors and students tried to push their way into McCormick's lecture hall, a small man with thinning white hair stood alone to the side of the swarming mass, holding his briefcase with both hands.

He stepped forward and whispered to one of the eager participants in a slight accent, "Would you mind if I could just sneak through?"

Moments later, the crowd began to charge in the opposite direction — the lecture had been moved to McCosh 50. Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Carter and the person everyone had come to hear, was left to follow his audience, again unnoticed.

Brzezinski, who delivered the Cyril Black Memorial Lecture titled "Transformation of Russia" yesterday, addressed past events, present times and future possibilities of the former Soviet Union. And he managed to cover all these topics in less than an hour.

"The central reality is that today's Russia is very different from what it has been in the past, from what it has identified itself with," said Brzezinski, who finally was the center of attention. "There is now a need to take stock, to rethink, to reconsolidate."

Currently a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University, Brzezinski was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981 for his role in normalizing United States-Chinese relations and for his contributions to American human rights and national security policies.

Brzezinski described Russia's past as lacking in a national identity and dependent upon a history of imperialism — reasons he said contributed to the country's difficult transition after the breakup of the USSR.

"The French empire was French, in that it grew from a national base with a high degree of national self-emphasis. The Russian empire was not based on a determined statehood," Brzezinski said. "As Russia grew, it quickly grew into an empire."

Addressing contemporary politics, Brzezinski shared his suspicion that president-elect Vladimir Putin may not be the visionary, patient leader he thinks is needed to deliver Russia as a successful nation into the 21st century, but rather a leader who condones murderous actions by the KGB.

"Putin has his own priorities," Brzezinski said. "He wants to recreate a Russian state in this historical era in the space of the Soviet Union. He is going to make careful efforts to subordinate more vulnerable independent states surrounding Russia, such as the Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia."

"I do not believe that Putin will establish a blood dictatorship, but there is a degree of insensitivity, of indifference there," he added.

The strategic policy expert, however, told his audience that he believes Russia can succeed in becoming a world power with the help of NATO and the growth of the European Union. "I am a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist, in that I think Russia has no other choice in its future policy," he said.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

"The United States must be patient with Russia. It must discriminate between the conduct that needs encouragement and the conduct that needs to be punished," he said.University Center for International Studies director Michael Doyle, who helped organize the appearance, noted the breadth of Brzezinski's expertise. "He combines a truly distinguished record both in scholarship as a teacher . . . and as a public servant," Doyle said.