On December 26, 1979, immediately following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski sent a memo to President Jimmy Carter urging an increase in US support for the anti-Soviet Afghan rebels. Providing that support, Brzezinski argued, would require Pakistan’s assistance.  And gaining Islamabad’s cooperation, Brzezinski wrote, “will require a review of our policy toward Pakistan, more guarantees to it, more arms aid, and, alas, a decision that our security policy toward Pakistan cannot be dictated by our nonproliferation policy.”  The policy of assisting the Islamic holy warriors in Afghanistan while turning a blind eye to Pakistani nuclear proliferation would have profound repercussions, allowing Islamabad to develop nuclear technology that would later be sold to rogue regimes and state sponsors of terror, while simultaneously fostering an Islamic fundamentalist movement that would eventually give rise to al Qaeda and the Taliban. (For more on the implications of Brzezinski’s strategy, as adopted by Carter and expanded by the Reagan-Bush administration, see America and the Islamic Bomb, pp. 3, 82-84, 90-91, 95-97, 230.)  

 

Asked in a 2004 on-camera interview whether he still believed the policy outlined in his 1979 memo was appropriate, Brzezinski responded, “In general, yes.”  After further elaboration, Brzezinski ended the interview.  A clip from the interview can be seen here.

 

Published by the Cold War International History Project (CWIHP) in volume one of the Document Reader prepared for the international conference "Toward an International History  of the War in Afghanistan, 1979-1989," (April 2002) edited by Christian Ostermann and Mircea Munteanu.