Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (Polish: Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzeziński, pronounced Polish pronunciation: ; born March 28, 1928, Warsaw, Poland) is a Polish-born American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Known for his hawkish foreign policy at a time when the Democratic Party was increasingly dovish, he is a foreign policy "realist" and considered by some to be the Democrats' response to Republican Henry Kissinger.

Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China), the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), the brokering of the Camp David Accords, the transition of Iran from an important US client state to an anti-Western Islamic Republic, encouraging dissidents in Eastern Europe and emphasizing certain human rights in order to undermine the influence of the Soviet Union, the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-allied Afghan government to increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war, and later to counter the Soviet invasion, and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing overt US control of the Panama Canal after 1999.

He is currently professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He appears frequently as an expert on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.