American Foreign Policy Quotes

• American foreign policy must be more than the management of crisis. It must have a great and guiding goal: to turn this time of American influence into generations of democratic peace.

  George W. Bush

  Goal, Generations, Management

  "Governor George W. Bush - 'A Distinctly American Internationalism'". Speech at Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California, www.globalsecurity.org. November 19, 1999.

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• I am ... willing to make it clear that American foreign policy must uphold the sanctity of international treaties. That is the cornerstone on which all relations between nations must rest.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Sanctity, Relation, Foreign Policy

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• The greatest crime since World War II has been U.S. foreign policy.

  Ramsey Clark

  Peace, War, World

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• Words summarize the American philosophy of life: Live and let live; Let's make a deal. 8 words summarize American foreign policy: We're better than you; Do it our way.

  Gary North

  Philosophy, Liberty, Libertarian

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• American foreign policy, for all its shortcomings, has underpinned political stability around the world.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  Political, World, Stability

  "A frugal superpower’s rules" by Michael Mandelbaum, www.japantimes.co.jp. OCtober 20, 2010.

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• I believe that if we had and would keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-soaked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own.... And if unfortunately their revolution must be of the violent type because the "haves" refuse to share with the "have-nots" by any peaceful method, at least what they get will be their own, and not the American style, which they don't want and above all don't want crammed down their throats by Americans.

  Michael Parenti

  Believe, Dirty, America

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• We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.

  George F. Kennan

  Rights, Should, Standards

  "PPS No. 23". Memo by George Kennan, en.wikisource.org. February 28, 1948.

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• The great divide in American foreign policy thinking is between those who believe in paper and those who believe in power.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Believe, Thinking, Paper

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• Frankly, I do not know how to effect a permanency in American foreign policy.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Leadership, Foreign Policy, Knows

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• Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.

  Michael Mandelbaum

  United States, Tasks, Firsts

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• I think that American presidents, that position in itself, as well as American foreign policy, it has terrorism in it. CIA agents going to overthrow certain governments - they're using terrorist tactics. They're not going in there like, 'Hey, you wanna have some cake?'

  Lupe Fiasco

  Thinking, Government, Cia Agents

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• The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.

  Henry A. Kissinger

  Principles, Trauma, Foreign Policy

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• The thing that should most concern us is a shift in American foreign policy. We have had a bipartisan belief in American foreign policy based on the post-World War II institutions that believed in democratic global world, which Russia and the Soviet Union was often seen as hostile to. And most Republicans and Democrats have always basically believed in this world order. Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin and maybe Marine Le Pen do not agree with this basic structure of the world.

  David Brooks

  War, Marine, Order

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• At the same time, old confrontations have taken on frightening urgency, especially the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir and the violent stalemate in the Middle East. Progress on these and other global challenges requires us to develop a larger strategy for American foreign policy, rooted in a fundamental commitment to move the world from interdependence to an integrated global community committed to peace and prosperity, freedom and security.

  William J. Clinton

  Peace, Moving, Taken

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• In that sense, Obama is America's first postmodern president. If his predecessors tended to see the world in terms of good and evil, Obama sees the world in terms of victims and victimizers - with the United States often in the role of victimizer. In that view, long favored by the academic left that shaped a young Barack Obama, American foreign policy is one long train of abuses, marked by casual aggression and eager imperiousness.

  Stephen F. Hayes

  Views, America, Evil

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• American foreign policy is not understood by the vast majority of American people. And that this is due to a media that in this country is suppressed by Washington and by the owners of this media, who often tend to be corporate entities close to the [White House] and very often are arms manufacturers with a vested interest in chaos [in] the Middle East. And as a result Americans do not actually get both sides of the story.

  Denis Halliday

  Country, Media, White

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• I got into journalism not to be a journalist but to try to change American foreign policy. I'm a corny person. I was a dreamer predating my journalistic life, so I got into journalism as a means to try to change the world.

  Samantha Power

  Mean, Dreamer, Trying

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• I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Thinking, Government, Self

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• The cause of the attack was not American foreign policy but an amoral disregard for human life.It is grotesque to suggest that a four-year-old girl, making her first and only flight in an aeroplane, should somehow bear responsibility for the actions of a government for whom she was never allowed the chance to grow up and vote either for or against.

  Menzies Campbell

  Girl, Growing Up, Responsibility

  "Key quotes from the Commons debate" by Matthew Tempest, www.theguardian.com. October 4, 2001.

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• Graham Greene, as I understand it, was quite outspoken in his criticism of American foreign policy.

  Brendan Fraser

  Criticism, Outspoken, Foreign Policy

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• But on the other hand, in discussion and debate concerning social issues or American foreign policy, Vietnam or the Middle East, for example, the issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I've repeatedly been challenged on grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do you have that entitles you to speak of these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional viewpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things.

  Noam Chomsky

  Hands, Issues, People

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• The people I see on bicycles look like organic-gardening zealots who advocate federal regulation of bedtime and want American foreign policy to be dictated by UNICEF. These people should be confined.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  People, Gardening, Want

  P. J. O'Rourke (2016). “Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and (Other) Outrages of . . .”, p.94, Pan Macmillan

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  The reason I made women's issues central to American foreign policy, was not because I was a feminist, but because we know that societies are more stable if women are politically and economically empowered.

  Madeleine Albright

  Issues, Feminist, Reason

  Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 15, 2010.

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• There was a degree of interventionism in American foreign policy, the notion that we must be the superpower and we have to intervene everywhere, that I think makes no sense.

  Barney Frank

  Thinking, Degrees, Foreign Policy

  "Reps. Barney Frank & Ron Paul on Military Spending". "The Situation Room" with Wolf Blitzer, www.realclearpolitics.com. July 7, 2010.

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• So what we have is an American foreign policy that is inextricably linked to domestic matters. It is very dangerous for a politician who desires nothing more than to stay in office to address the mindset that any change in policy is appeasement. And Americans will accept that for a certain amount of time.

  Michael Scheuer

  Office, Desire, Addresses

  Source: www.pbs.org

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