It is with great sorrow that International Crisis Group marks the passing away of Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. National Security Adviser and a valued former member of the Crisis Group Board of Trustees. He died in hospital in Virginia on 23 May.

Brzezinski, a Polish-born scholar who served as National Security Adviser in U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s White House, had a long career commenting on America’s foreign policy. He was courageous in defending unconventional views, most notably in warning against the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and relentless in advocating bold moves, including to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All those who witnessed his participation in Crisis Group Board meetings through most of the 2000s vividly recall his rare combination of analytical rigor, intellectual curiosity, creativity, and humor.

“Brzezinski was a true strategic mind”, said Crisis Group President & CEO Jean-Marie Guéhenno. “He was much more attuned to the post-Cold War world than almost any other U.S. statesman, and we benefited immensely from his guidance”.

Crisis Group will continue to honour his memory and the legacy he expressed so well in his last Tweet on 4 May: “Sophisticated U.S. leadership is the sine qua non of a stable world order. However, we lack the former while the latter is getting worse.”

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