POLES CAN FEEL MORE SECURE

Mark Brzezinski , the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw talks with Jerzy Dąbrowski about politics, history and family values.

You became an ambassador two days before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is definitely a huge burden because you did not even have time to unpack your suitcases ...

I presented my credentials two days before the invasion. I actually arrived in Poland about a month before that, but that’s still not a lot of time. So really, yes, I did have to jump right in.

Poles are impressed with the enormous help of the United States for Ukraine. Many older people who remember the Second World War look at this help with disbelief. However, bearing in mind the loneliness that Poland experienced in the September 1939 campaign, these people fear that in the event of Russia’s aggression against Poland, we may be left alone again. How can you assure these people that it will never happen? That’s a very important observation - that in many ways for Poles, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is like 1939. The difference is that this time Poland is part of the NATO alliance. I lived in Poland for two years in the 1990s - on a Fulbright Scholarship. So, I can see the difference now that Poland is a NATO member. There are thousands of American troops here in Poland. President Biden declared during the Madrid Summit that the Fifth Corps Forward Headquarters in Poznań is now permanent. Poles can feel more secure. That’s why, in my opinion, Poles have been so willing to open their homes and their hearts to those who are fleeing Ukraine.

When I say repeatedly that Poland is safe and secure, I’m not just speaking for myself. I’m also speaking on behalf of President Biden, who came here to Poland to declare that we will defend every inch of NATO territory.

You were an advisor to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on Eastern Europe. You also mobilized the American Polish community to vote for the Democratic party. You are well prepared to run an embassy in Warsaw, and yet you had a problem in taking over it. The Polish government did not agree because of ... your Polish citizenship. How was this resolved?

Ambassador Mark Brzezinski

It’s a long process to become an ambassador. You have to be thoroughly vetted first. I’d been through that process before when I was Ambassador to Sweden, so that made it a little easier. The U.S. Embassy here shared my name before I was nominated to make sure that the Polish government agreed that I could be Ambassador here. And the Poles do their own vetting – just like we do on our side, and, as you suggested, one of the issues that they looked at was this question of citizenship. I’m proud of my Polish heritage, but I’ve never claimed to be a Polish citizen. I was born and grew up in the United States. When I came to Poland as a Fulbright scholar, I came here as an American.

But whether I consider myself a Polish citizen and whether Polish law considers me a Polish citizen are different issues. This isn’t the first time this issue has come up. Nicholas Rey, who was U.S. Ambassador in the 1990s was born in Warsaw. So, there is a process to resolve that sort of issue. It turned out that according to Polish law, based on my mother’s heritage, I am a citizen of Czechoslovakia – which isn’t even a country anymore! So, I’m an American citizen, but we did have to sort that issue out.

Your mother, Emilie Benes Brzeziński, a relative of Edvard Beneš, president of Czechoslovakia in 1935-1938 and 19401948, died last year. What she was like?

My mother was an artist, and she was an artist in Washington, DC – which is not an artist’s city; it’s more focused on government and politics. So, she was on her own as an artist, but she had the support of my dad who was proud of her work. She would make these big rubber molds of trees and cast them into resin sculptures. Later she started working with wood and carved huge sculptures that have a strong ecological message. What I learned from her is the strength of personality that an artist must have to stand alone, to challenge convention, to do something that others may not understand – but they realize that it’s beautiful. When I was growing up, there was true gender equality in the Brzezinski home. My father was an important guy, but her work was just as important. When we kids came home from school, if my mom was working with her chainsaw on a huge sculpture, we did not interrupt her until she finished her work. Looking back as an adult, I respect my dad’s support of her in everything she did.

Did your grandfather, Tadeusz, a participant in the Polish-Bolshevik war, the Polish consul in Kharkiv until 1937, tell you about his work in pre-war Polish diplomacy?

My grandfather was one of many who chose to stand up, who did what he knew was right despite the risks his actions caused. In 2008, I wrote of his incredible story in the New York Times, how he went beyond the call of duty in his role as a Polish diplomat.

Serving as Poland’s consul general in Leipzig, Germany, during Hitler’s rise to power in the early 1930s, he saw the unjust evil brew and grow. At that time, Jews were already being moved to concentration camps and losing their legal status.

My grandfather provided Polish passports to Jews, both Polish and German, so they could be freed from internment or be able to escape Nazi Germany. When indifference was the easy choice, he made the hard choice. He made the right choice. He chose not to be indifferent in the face of atrocity. He chose to take action to protect lives.

The United States, thanks to your father’s prompts, supported the election of Karol Wojtyła as Pope. What was the relationship between the Holy Father and Zbigniew Brzeziński?

My father met with John Paul II shortly after he became Pope. The Pope started the conversation saying, “Today we are speaking as two Poles.” So, they were both Poles who found themselves abroad in the late 1970s. One happened to be the Pope and the other happened to be the National Security Advisor to the President of the United States at the height of the Cold War. They collaborated for the global good, but their roots were in Poland. Poland remained their North Star that informed their worldview. For the Pope, it informed the advice that he gave to his flock, to the whole world of Catholics, and to my father, to people involved in foreign policy in America.

When John Paul II came to America, my whole family had dinner with the Pope. My father spent the whole morning teaching me to kiss the Pope’s ring, but when I met the Pope and went to kiss his ring he asked me, “Why are you doing that? You’re an American; we can shake hands.”

President Carter was at your Sacrament of confirmation because of your father’s business trip. Did these youthful contacts with politicians decide about your later life?

I was raised in a household that really valued and, I feel, understood the unique role for America in the world, in terms of advancing values, and making a difference in improving people’s lives. And I was able to watch my father through his diplomacy, his work with President Carter and many others, using the alignment between countries to advance peace and humanity. The example that comes most immediately to mind is the Israel-Egypt peace treaty between Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin. As a young person, I had the great fortune to be taken by my father to the signing ceremony between Begin and Sadat, and both said, at the ceremony, “but for the President being willing to risk his presidency to advance peace, this wouldn’t have happened.” This is the longest lasting peace treaty in the history of the Middle East. My brother, sister, and I were all able to sit at the elbow of my dad, to see what works in world politics.

Your brother Ian is also a diplomat and Republican. He was Assistant Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and worked closely with the presidential candidate John McCain. Does involvement in the opposite poles of politics negatively affect family relations, as is often the case in Poland?

Zbigniew Brzezinski with sons

I love my brother – just as I love my sister – so family relations are wonderful. We have an expression in America that politics stops at the water’s edge. Which means that we have very vibrant debates about domestic politics, but when it comes to foreign policy there is a broad consensus on many issues. So, if you look at the policies of different administrations, Democratic and Republican, towards Poland you will find a lot of continuity. We support strong security cooperation based on shared democratic values. We’ve had over a hundred members of Congress come to Poland since February 24th, and there has been a strong bipartisan consensus in support of Ukraine and a deep appreciation of Poland’s role in that support. Right now, my brother is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, and if you look at what he has been saying about the intense allied collaboration in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, you will see that we agree on a lot.

Mark Brzezinski was sworn in as the Ambassador of the United States to Poland on December 22, 2021.

Ambassador Brzezinski previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2011 to 2015, spearheading innovative new approaches to advance U.S.-European trade and landing key Swedish investments, including Volvo’s decision to build a USD 1 billion factory in South Carolina. He also arranged the first-ever U.S. Presidential visit to Stockholm, which brought together all five heads of governments of the Nordic countries for a summit that galvanized a U.S.-Nordic strategic approach on energy, innovation, and sustainability. In 2015, he was asked by the White House to lead a strategic effort on the Arctic as the first Executive Director of the White House’s Arctic Executive Steering Committee.

Most recently, Ambassador Brzezinski was founder and principal of Brzezinski Strategies LLC. He was a Managing Director at Makena Capital Management, where he led the firm’s sustainable and ESG investing efforts. For a decade, he was a partner at the law firm McGuireWoods LLP, where he helped build the law firm’s international compliance practice. From 1999 to 2001, he served on President Clinton’s National Security Council staff, first as a Director for Russia and Eurasia, and then as a Director for the Balkans.

Ambassador Brzezinski is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and the Trilateral Commission. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Poland in 1991-93, during which he researched and wrote a book entitled “The Struggle for Constitutionalism in Poland.” In 2010, he was named to the State Department’s Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. He received a BA from Dartmouth College, a JD from the University of Virginia, and a PhD in Political Science from Oxford University.

He is the proud father of a teenage daughter, Aurora Brzezinski.

Zbigniew Brzeziński (March 28, 1928 - May 26, 2017), was a Polish American diplomat and political scientist. He served as a counselor to President Lyndon B. Johnson from 1966 to 1968 and was President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor from 1977 to 1981.

Major foreign policy events during his time in office included the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China; the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), with the Soviet Union; the brokering of the Camp

David Accords between Egypt and Israel; the overthrow of the US-friendly Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the start of the Iranian Revolution; the United States’ encouragement of dissidents in Eastern Europe and championing of human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union; supporting the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and, ultimately, Soviet occupation troops during the Soviet-Afghan War; and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.

Brzeziński’s personal views have been described as “progressive”, “international”, political liberal, and “strong anti-communist”. Critics described him as hawkish or “foreign policy hardliner” on some issues such as Poland-Russia relations.

His eldest son, Ian is a foreign policy expert, his youngest son, Mark, is the current United States Ambassador to Poland, his daughter, Mika is a television news presenter and co-host of MSNBC’s weekday morning program.