Quotes & Sayings About Foreign Policies

BECAUSE THIS MONEY came from Texas, the rise of Lyndon Johnson sheds light on the new economic forces that surged out of the Southwest in the middle of the twentieth century, on the immense influence exerted over America's politics, its governmental institutions, its foreign and domestic policies by these forces: the oil and sulphur and gas and defense barons of the Southwest. As the robber barons of the last century looted the nation's earth of its wealth - its coal and coke, its oil and ore, its iron, its forests, the very surface of its earth to provide a footing for the rails of their railroads - and used part of that wealth to ensure that the nation's government would not force them to give more than a pittance of their loot back to the nation's people, so the robber barons of this century have drained the earth of the Southwest of its riches and have used those riches to bend government to their ends. — Robert A. Caro

Reagan took an approach to the Cold War dramatically different from any other US President. To wit, he thought we should win. This was a fresh concept. At the time, it was widely ridiculed as a dangerous alteration of US policy. Only after it worked was Reagan's dangerous foreign policy recast as merely a continuation of the policies of his predecessors. — Ann Coulter

I'm trying to fight the terrorism that's actually causing the other forms of terrorism. You know, the root cause of terrorism is the stuff that the U.S. government allows to happen, and the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists. And it's easy for us because it's just some oil. — Lupe Fiasco

If elitist groups like Bohemian Club, the CFR and the Bilderberg Group select and groom candidates to become Presidents of the US then isn't it safe to assume they also dictate certain policies once their alumni are in the White House? — Lance Morcan

Side by side with the limitless possibilities opened up by the new technologies, reflection about international order must include the internal dangers of societies driven by mass consensus, deprived of the context and foresight needed on terms compatible with their historical character. In every other era, this has been considered the essence of leadership; in our own, it risks being reduced to a series of slogans designed to capture immediate short-term approbation. Foreign policy is in danger of turning into a subdivision of domestic politics instead of an exercise in shaping the future. If the major countries conduct their policies in this manner internally, their relations on the international stage will suffer concomitant distortions. The search for perspective may well be replaced by a hardening of differences, statesmanship by posturing. As diplomacy is transformed into gestures geared toward passions, the search for equilibrium risks giving way to a testing of limits. — Henry Kissinger

The larger Europe grows, the more diverse must be the forms of co-operation it requires. Instead of a centralised bureaucracy, the model should be a market - not only a market of individuals and companies, but also a market in which the players are governments.
Thus governments would compete with each other for foreign investments, top management and high earners through lower taxes and less regulation.
Such a market would impose a fiscal discipline on governments because they would not want to drive away expertise and business.
It would also help to establish which fiscal and regulatory policies produced the best overall economic results.
No wonder socialists don't like it. — Margaret Thatcher

It was the power of Business, not the deliberations of statesman, that shaped the destinies of nations. The Foreign Ministers of the great powers might make the actual declarations of their Governments' policies; but it was the Big Business men, the bankers and their dependents, the arms manufacturers, the oil companies, the big industrialists, who determined what those policies should be. — Eric Ambler

The U.S. public should not learn that "state policies are overwhelmingly regressive, thus reinforcing and expanding social inequality," though designed in ways that lead "people to think that the government helps only the undeserving poor, allowing politicians to mobilize and exploit anti-government rhetoric and values even as they continue to funnel support to their better-off constituents" - I'm quoting here from the main establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, not from some radical rag. — Noam Chomsky

In the 1992 presidential debate, third-party candidate Ross Perot famously warned about a 'giant sucking sound' of American jobs going south of the border to low-wage nations once trade protections were dropped.

Perot was right, but no one in our government listened to him.

Tariffs were ditched, and then Bill Clinton moved into the White House...He continued Reagan's trade policies and committed the United States to so-called free-trade agreements such as GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO, thus removing all the protections that had kept our domestic manufacturing industries safe from foreign corporate predators for two centuries. — Thom Hartmann

Our foreign policy needs to support our energy, economic, defense and domestic policies. It all falls within the arch of national interest. There will be windows of opportunity, but they will open and close quickly. — Chuck Hagel

The U.S. government did not seem to recognize that its punitive foreign policies, its military installations in countries all over the globe, might arouse anger in foreign countries, and that anger might turn to violence. — Howard Zinn

There must appear a spiritual and moral leadership rising above economic and political situations. Governments in both their domestic and foreign policies appeal for popular support by promises of material gain. We cannot make peace by mere appeal to greed. We must give the peoples of the world something to live for as well as something to live on. — John Haynes Holmes

The great error of nearly all studies of war ... has been to consider war as an episode in foreign policies, when it is an act of interior politics ... — Simone Weil

The really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds. What that means is that, even if we somehow manage to survive this man's reckless economic policies at home and his potentially fatal foreign policy actions and inactions, the gullibility and fecklessness of those voters who put him in the White House will still be there to be exploited by the next master of glib demagoguery and emotional images, who can lead us into another vortex of dangers, from which there is no guarantee that we will emerge as a free people or even as a viable society. — Thomas Sowell

Singaporeans seemed generally quite loathe to discuss these more intimate policies of government with a curious foreign visitor who was more than twice as tall as the average human, and who sweated slowly but continuously, like and aged cheese. — William Gibson

If you read British Foreign Office records from the 1940s, it's clear they recognised that their day in the sun was over and that Britain would have to be the "junior partner" of the United States, and sometimes treated in a humiliating way. A striking example of this was in 1962, the time of the Cuban missile crisis. The Kennedy planners were making some very dangerous choices and pursuing policies which they thought had a good chance of leading to nuclear war, and they knew that Britain would be wiped out. The US wouldn't, because Russia's missiles couldn't reach there, but Britain would be wiped out. — Noam Chomsky

Sure, tactically and in the short term, we'll do all right, but in the long term, these types of policies always fail, and you know why, because there will come a time that we need the same American public - that we kept everything hidden from - to support the policy either with their blood or money. — J.W. Amran

The amount of U.S. debt held by countries such as China and Japan is at a historic high, with foreign investors holding half of America's publicly held debt. This dependence raises the specter that other nations will be able to influence our policies in ways antithetical to American interests. — Evan Bayh

When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s. — Barack Obama

Regrettably, many Americans don't pay much attention to the inconsistencies in U.S. foreign policy. People in other parts of the world who feel the impact of those policies play close attention. And they take notes. — Charles Kimball

We have to work sincerely and responsibly to thwart any attempt to divide the Arab nation into small groups, with which foreign countries would deal separately. This would eventually be in the interests of Zionism, which stands behind such policies, formulating the relevant theories and promoting distorted information to world politicians, especially in the West, in order to make them adopt an approach which is harmful to the Arab nation and is even against the legitimate interests of their own countries. — Saddam Hussein

The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies. — Samantha Power

Thus all civilian officials and military officers in the United States government who either knew or should have known that the Reagan administration intended to assassinate Qaddafi and participated in the bombing operation are "war criminals" according to the U.S. government's own official definition of that term. The American people should not have permitted any aspect of their foreign affairs and defense policies to be conducted by acknowledged "war criminals." They should have insisted upon the impeachment, dismissal, resignation, and prosecution of all U.S. government officials guilty of such war crimes. Nevertheless, U.S. public opinion had been so effectively brutalized by five years of Reaganism that over three-quarters of the American people rallied to the support of their demented leadership over the destruction, injuries, and death it had inflicted upon hundreds of innocent civilians in Tripoli and Benghazi. — Francis A. Boyle

Islamo-Fascism is NOT the result of economic deprivation or legitimate blowback because of Western foreign policies or even heinous drone attacks on Muslim civilians. All non-Muslims as Infidels, regardless of their faith or lack of it, are in an ideological war with a demonized, freedom-hating Muslim death-cult rooted in their accurate interpretation of the Qur'an! — Gary Patton

Barack Obama has talked a lot about changing the way America relates to the world, and few areas are as ripe for reform as our policies on foreign aid. — Iqbal Quadir

U.S. assistance provides the Jordanian government needed flexibility to pursue policies that are of critical importance to U.S. national security and to foreign policy objectives in the Middle East. — Richard Armitage

If somebody wants to sit down with me for an hour and interview me and ask me any question about my record, my policies, my foreign policy experience, my domestic policy experience, I'm willing to do that. — John Kasich

Foreign policy of a pluralistic democracy like the United States should be based on bipartisanship because bipartisanship is the means and the framework for formulating policies based on moderation and on the recognition of the complexity of the human condition. That has been the tradition since the days of Truman and Vandenberg all the way until recent times. — Zbigniew Brzezinski

We cannot blame other people for our troubles. We are not victims of the influx of foreign people into South Africa. We must remember that it was mainly due to the aggressive and hostile policies of the apartheid regime that the economic development of our neighbours was undermined. — Nelson Mandela

President Obama is determined that our foreign and national security policies not play into al-Qa'ida's strategy or its warped ideology. Al-Qa'ida seeks to terrorize us into retreating from the world stage. But President Obama has made it a priority to renew American leadership in the world, strengthening our alliances and deepening partnerships. — John O. Brennan

Hostility toward Iran may not be the silliest of all American foreign policies - that would probably be the continuing trade embargo of Cuba - but it is undoubtedly the most self-defeating. — Stephen Kinzer

The Army, small as it was in numbers, became a state within a state, exerting an increasing influence on the nation's foreign and domestic policies until a point was reached where the Republic's continued existence depended on the will of the officer corps. As a state within a state it maintained its independence of the national government. Under the Weimar Constitution the Army could have been subordinated to the cabinet and Parliament, as the military establishments of the other Western democracies were. But it was not. Nor was the officer corps purged of its monarchist, antirepublican frame of mind. — Anonymous

I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. — Howard Zinn

From the earliest days, the Rothschilds appreciated the importance of proximity to politicians, the men who determined not only the extent of budget deficits but also the domestic and foreign policies ... — Niall Ferguson

American foreign policy was a mirror image of Russian foreign policy: whatever the Russians did, we did in reverse. American domestic policies were conducted under a kind of upside-down Russian veto: no man could be elected to public office unless he was on record as detesting the Russians, and no proposal could be enacted, from a peace plan at one end to a military budget at the other, unless it could be demonstrated that the Russians wouldn't like it. — Archibald MacLeish

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of. — Talib Kweli

Barack Obama has been the architect of policies that have hurt our country domestically as well as foreign. — Robert Pittenger

In China, export lobbies have fought for policies that favor their interests and limit foreign competition. — Henry Paulson

The descendants of European immigrants do not govern the United States of America today. The foreign and domestic policies of the country are made by the Jews and their lackeys. — Julius Streicher

What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor
inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing
permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children. — Howard Zinn

I focus most of my attention on Hillary Clinton and her disastrous policies. I mean, there's a real danger in this election. Electing Hillary Clinton in an era where we now are so pessimistic about the future, would double down on [Barack] Obama economics and a failed foreign policy - so most of my attention is about my record and about defeating Hillary Clinton. — Jeb Bush

In 2010, foreign students received more than 50 percent of all Ph.D.'s awarded in every subject in the United States. In the sciences, that figure is closer to 75 percent. Half of all Silicon Valley start-ups have one founder who is an immigrant or first-generation American. America's potential new burst of productivity, its edge in nanotechnology, biotechnology, its ability to invent the future - all rest on its immigration policies. — Fareed Zakaria

Culture is a powerful force that influences our perceptions, our mindsets and even our domestic and foreign policies. The rich, messy complexity of 1,400 years of Islamic civilization and 1.6 billion Muslims has been reduced to token stereotypes. We are either avatars of destruction or the good Muslim who helps the national security narrative. But the overwhelming majority of us live in the giant middle - the grey zone - where impressions exist in more colors than just black and white." * — Rabia Chaudry

Israel is not just any small country. It is the only small country - the only country, period - whose neighbors publicly declare its very existence an affront to law, morality and religion and make its extinction an explicit , paramount national goal. Iran, Libya, and Iraq conduct foreign policies designed for the killing of Israelis and the destruction of their state. They choose their allies (Hamas, Hezbollah) and develop their weapons (suicide bombs, poison gas, anthrax, nuclear missiles) accordingly. Countries as far away as Malaysia will not allow a representative of Israel on their soil or even permit the showing of 'Schindler's List' lest it engender sympathy for Zion. — Charles Krauthammer

A nation's domestic and foreign policies and actions should be derived from the same standards of ethics, honesty and morality which are characteristic of the individual citizens of the nation. — Jimmy Carter

In 2012, President Barack Obama ran for re-election against Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts, who didn't have any eumelanin in the basale stratum of his epidermis. It was the usual bargain for J. Karacehennem and other people of the Loony Left. You supported a person whose policies you agreed with, sort of, but who you felt was too beholden to corporate interests and whose foreign policy made you sick. If you didn't support this person, the alternative was something even worse. Voting was little more than triage. — Jarett Kobek

When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways. — Robert Kagan

Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first. They will have the chance to reject today's rule by the global elite, and to embrace real change that delivers a government of, by and for the people. — Donald Trump

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies - socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor - and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. — John Pilger

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts. — Henry A. Kissinger

The free world has need that its foreign policies should fairly measure the realities of the world in which we live. There are certain principles to which we hold: the sanctity of treaties, good faith between nations, the interdependence of peoples from which no country, however powerful, can altogether escape. — Anthony Eden

The principle victims of British policies are Unpeople - those whose lives are deemed worthless, expendable in the pursuit of power and commercial gain. They are the modern equivalent of the 'savages' of colonial days, who could be mown down by British guns in virtual secrecy, or else in circumstances where the perpetrators were hailed as the upholders of civilisation. — Mark Curtis

Colonialism is known in its primitive form, that is to say, by the permanent settling of repressive foreign powers, with an army, services, policies. This phase has known cruel colonial occupations which have lasted 300 years in Indonesia. — Ahmed Ben Bella

The Japanese army is now prepared to use every means within its power to subdue its opponents. The objectives of the Japanese Expeditionary Forces are, as clearly set forth in statements issued by the Japanese Government, not only to protect the vested interests of Japan and the lives and property of the Japanese residents in the affected area, but also to scourge the Chinese Government and army who have een pursuing anti-foreign and anti-Japanese policies in collaboration with Communist influences. — Iwane Matsui

If the major powers come to practice foreign policies of manipulating a multiplicity of subsovereign units observing ambiguous and often violent rules of conduct, many based on extreme articulations of divergent cultural experiences, anarchy is certain. — Henry Kissinger

As I have tried to show, science, in producing the airplane and the wireless, has created a new international political environment to which governments must adjust their foreign policies. — John Boyd Orr

There are certainly major differences between Poland's policies and those of the old EU countries. Debates are going on in Brussels over a shared foreign policy and even a shared foreign minister. — Lech Kaczynski

If I become president, France will not continue with the same policies as under Nicolas Sarkozy - both in domestic policy and in foreign and European policy. — Francois Hollande

By 1938, Eleanor Roosevelt was so angry at FDR's policies, she writes a book called This Troubled World. And it is actually a point-by-point rebuttal of her husband's foreign policy. We need collective security. We need a World Court. We need something like the League of Nations. We need to work together to fight fascism. We need embargoes against aggressor nations, and we need to name aggressor nations. All of which is a direct contradiction of FDR's policies. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

George, your reckless and wanton foreign policies killed my son, Spc. Casey Austin Sheehan, in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq. Helping to bring about your political downfall will be the most noble accomplishment of my life, and it will bring justice for my son and the hundreds of other brave Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis your lies have killed. — Cindy Sheehan

The recent, single-year influx of unaccompanied minors from foreign countries into the United States is a direct result of President Obama's policies of encouraging amnesty and failing to enforce existing immigration laws. — James Lankford

'Know your enemy, name your enemy' is a 9/11 message that has gone unheeded. Our immigration and homeland security policies refuse to profile jihadi adherents at foreign consular offices and at our borders. — Michelle Malkin

[T]here seems to have been an actual decline in rational thinking. The United States had become a place where entertainers and professional athletes were mistaken for people of importance. They were idolized and treated as leaders; their opinions were sought on everything and they took themselves just as seriously-after all, if an athlete is paid a million or more a year, he knows he is important ... so his opinions of foreign affairs and domestic policies must be important, too, even though he proves himself to be ignorant and subliterate every time he opens his mouth. — Robert A. Heinlein