Quotes & Sayings About International Relations

International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power — Hans J. Morgenthau

The sun began to set behind Bethlehem and the beams were breaking through some white and gray clouds. There was a slight and beautiful chill from the autumn air. I gave thanks for that beautiful day and for the fact that the sun does not know Palestinian from Israeli, Christian from Muslim or Jew, and Asian from American or African, and I asked myself: If the sun shines on all of us as one, how much more does the sun's Creator see and love us all as one? — Ted Dekker

New Zealand's nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might. — David Lange

Even a little practical working familiarity with cattle goes a long way in Africa, but how many international relations studies include this? — T.K. Naliaka

International awareness of his deceptive practices is the reflection of the frustration that is prevailing in Sri Lanka which the President is trying to undermine by the traditional emotive and hate mongering politics. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

But we are only termites on a planet and maybe when we bore too deeply into the planet there'll be a reckoning. Who knows? — Harry S. Truman

For most of their history in China, Pugs were treasured dogs. By law, they could only be owned by nobility or by Buddhist monks. However, because they were held in such high regard, they were also used as pawns in international relations. In 732 C.E., China gave a Pug to Japan as a gift to cement diplomatic relations. The Japanese became infatuated with this dog, and it became the first of many given to Japanese diplomats. — Liz Palika

I'm a historian by training and by conviction. And so the thing that has throughout informed my thinking about international relations is history. I think, for example, the reason that I was perhaps able to see sooner than some others that the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe was decaying
if not disintegrating
was that I came to it through history and through Germany, rather than through Sovietology and through Moscow. And therefore the starting point was that no empire in history has lasted forever, and this one won't either. — Timothy Garton Ash

I had two different degrees: One in International Relations/Political Science and another degree in Radio and Television Production. — Hannah Simone

Such highly qualitative leadership is demanded especially in the realm of the fostering of right international relations. Here the demand is simply irresistible. — John Raleigh Mott

How can you cry for others' struggles when you are facilitating mayhem in your own land? — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

International order is not an evolution; it is an imposition. It is the domination of one vision over others- in this case, the domination of liberal principles of economics, domestic politics, and international relations over other, nonliberal principles. It will last only as long as those who imposed it retain the capacity to defend it. — Robert Kagan

I had always been the theater nerd at Northwestern University. I knew I wanted to do acting, but I hated the idea of being this cliche - a girl from L.A. who decides to be an actress. I wanted more than that, and I had always loved politics, so I ended up changing my major completely, and double-majoring in theater and international relations. — Meghan Markle

The mentality of being the super power globally or regionally has contributed strongly to the development of very negative aspects to the political cohabitation the countries of the region than proving the capability of producing solutions that would meet the needs of the public. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

The real challenge of compassion, nonviolence and mindfulness is to love in adverse situation. — Amit Ray

China always urges that no use or threat of sanctions should be allowed in international relations. — Li Zhaoxing

If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it. — Noam Chomsky

International relations bears more than a slight resemblance to the mafia. — Noam Chomsky

At a purely practical level, history is important because it provides the basic skills needed for students to go further in sociology, politics, international relations and economics. History is also an ideal discipline for almost all careers in the law, the civil service and the private sector. — Antony Beevor

Most of the institutions that come in to offer help after disaster don't have the resources to provide concrete help. . . . Donor communities invest billions funding peace talks and disarmament. Then they stop. The most important part of postwar help is missing: providing basic social services to people. Not having those resources might have been a reason men went to war in the first place; they crossed a border and joined an armed group because they didn't have jobs. In Liberia right now, there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed young people, and they're ready-made mercenaries for wars in West Africa. You'd think the international community would be sensible enough to know they should work to change this. But they aren't. — Leymah Gbowee

Masood Ahmed brings to the position of director of external relations extensive experience gained in a range of senior positions in international finance and development. — Rodrigo Rato

The key to resolving international conflict with a positive outcome includes looking for a win-win situation, finding common ground, formulating proactive strategies, using effective negotiation and communication, and appreciating cultural differences. — Amit Ray

As a conservative power, the United States has a vital interest in upholding and expanding the reign of law in international relations. — J. William Fulbright

The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution. — Hannah Arendt

Our democratic system, national identity, and international space must be respected. Any forms of suppression will harm the stability of cross-strait relations. — Tsai Ing-wen

The prisoner's dilemma may seem to represent a rather specific and unusual scenario, but in fact it shows up all over the place in human and animal life. It turns out, for example, to underlie arms races in international relations, inaction on climate change, obstacles to trade, and even natural phenomena such as why trees grow so tall - giant redwoods could save terrific resources by only growing to, say, 50 feet (they usually grow to over 200), but in the competition for light, whoever grows that bit taller at the expense of the others will do better. In — Dominic Johnson

Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total and seemingly permanent, the free sport of kings has become the forced and internecine business of people, and diplomatic codes of honor between nations have collapsed. Peace in no longer serious; only war is serious. Every man and every nation is either friend or foe, and the idea of enmity becomes mechanical, massive, and without genuine passion. When virtually all negotiation aimed at peaceful agreement is likely to be seen as 'appeasement,' if not treason, the active role of the diplomat becomes meaningless; for diplomacy becomes merely a prelude to war an interlude between wars, and in such a context the diplomat is replaced by the warlord. — C. Wright Mills

A war in the Taiwan Strait would destroy China's international relations overnight. It would destroy Chinese - Japanese relations, not to mention Chinese - American relations. — William Kirby

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

Therefore, every country has to understand that fighting against international terrorism is not for the sake of the United States, but for the sake of themselves, and, to a larger extent, in the name of stability of international relations. — Omar Bongo

Democratizing China is not, however, the principal rationale for engaging it; that is the task of the Chinese themselves. But creating a mutually nonthreatening and beneficial relationship is an appropriate,and achievable, goal for the United States. Acting on the presumption of an existing or probable China threat, on the other hand, exaggerates China's intentions and capabilities and opens the door to a new Cold War. — Melvin Gurtov

Diplomacy, if conducted sensibly, is a matter of small gains offset by small losses, an attempt to maintain a state of equilibrium in which catastrophes are either mitigated or, with luck, avoided entirely. — William S. Maltby

Three hours later the two men were calling each other Harry and Allan, which goes to show what a couple of bottles of tequila can do for international relations. — Jonas Jonasson

In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. — Samuel P. Huntington

Here are the folks that are involved in this New World Order: The United Nations [ ... ] the World Council of Churches [ ... ] the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers [ ... ] the International Monetary Fund [ ... ] the Club of Rome, the communists, the socialists, the National Education Association [ ... ] the NOW organisation, the ACLU, the Masonic Lodge. — Kent Hovind

In the beginning of college I wanted to be an English major, but then I became interested in international relations. — Nick McDonell

Every aspect of the world today - even politics and international relations - is affected by chemistry. — Linus Pauling

Military intervention to maintain the global status quo will become a constant feature of international relations, whether this is justified in terms of fighting drugs, fighting terrorism, containing 'rogue states', opposing 'Islamic fundamentalism', or containing China. — Walden Bello

Because of new technologies, new wealth, new conditions of domestic life and of international relations, unprecedented criteria and issues are coming up for national decision. — Herman Kahn

Over the past year, several cases of human rights abuses, specifically sexual exploitation and abuse, by individuals involved in U.N. peacekeeping operations have raised the suspicions of many Members of Congress and members of the International Relations Committee. — Michael McCaul

While Pakistan plunged into civil war, Kissinger looked for massacres committed by Bengalis, to generate a moral equivalence that would exonerate Yahya. It would be convenient for Nixon and Kissinger to be able to say that both sides were equally rotten. — Gary J. Bass

Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas. — Ian Fleming

Art has often been and continues to be considered transcendent. I see this as misguided and, in fact, a way of subverting the powerful voice art can be in global discussions about politics, economics, society, culture, religion and international relations. — Aman Mojadidi

Ideally, the ISS program will just be one more incremental step on an expanding, incredible journal of exploration and understanding, taking us higher and farther. — Ron Garan

I dream, one day the consciousness of the countries will be so high that they will be ashamed to place military on the international borders. All international borders will be place for the tourist, gardeners and cultural celebration. — Amit Ray

Palestinian and Israeli leaders finally recover the Road Map to Peace, only to discover that, while they were looking for it, the Lug Nuts of Mutual Interest came off the Front Left Wheel of Accommodation, causing the Sport Utility Vehicle of Progress to crash into the Ditch of Despair. — Dave Barry

Filmmaking became a possible way for me to combine my interest in photography and in gathering stories, as well as my interest in journalism and political science and international relations. — Joshua Marston

It is not realistic to put legal constraints on war powers. Law works through general prospective rules that apply to a range of factual situations. International relations and national security are too fluid and unpredictable to be governed by a set of legal propositions that command general assent secured in advance. Laws governing war make us feel more secure but they don't actually make us more secure — Eric A. Posner

The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament. — Bertrand Russell

It is never right for any individual or government to do any vast evil as a means to some hypothetical good. — Leonard Woolf

In a rich moonlit garden, flowers open beneath the eyes of entire nations terrified to acknowledge the simplicity of the beauty of peace. — Aberjhani

We're taught to talk about the world as a world of as states conceived as unified, coherent entities. If you study international relations (IR) theory, there's what's called "realist" IR theory, which says there is an anarchic world of states and states pursue their "national interest." It's in large part mythology. There are a few common interests, like we don't want to be destroyed. But, for the most part, people within a nation have very different interests. The interests of the CEO of General Electric and the janitor who cleans his floor are not the same. — Noam Chomsky

Kyoto protocol is not a simple environmental issue, where you can say scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about the economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake, and that is why it is serious, ... — Margot Wallstrom

[In case of zombie uprising] Marxists and Feminists would likely sympathize more with zombies. To Marxists, the undead symbolize the oppressed proletariat. Unless the zombies were all undead white males, feminists would likely welcome the posthuman smashing of existing patriarchal structures. — Daniel W. Drezner

I was studying International Relations at Columbia when 9/11 happened, and it made me want understand the security dynamics of the world. I had been more focused on soft power issues - understanding different cultures and such - but once 9/11 happened, I felt like I didn't know anything about security problems. — Ellen Gustafson

Universality of the UN is a worthwhile thing in its own self because it means that every country belongs, feels it has a stake, and participates, rather than going away and finding other methods of conducting international relations. — Shashi Tharoor

[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest. — Martin Schulz

Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations — J. William Fulbright

In this new digital landscape, this sort of international marketplace, it's come full circle, and I wanted to take advantage of my talent relations on both sides of the Atlantic. — Colin Callender

Critical discussions of Western colonialism and imperialism and of what the term postcolonialism could mean, require, and enable first became acceptable in literature and cultural studies departments in the United States some three decades ago. Yet it has been much harder to create such discussions of sciences and technologies. Especially resistant are those departments where the West's scientific rationality and technical expertise have long been lovingly explained and "served up" for use in corporate and nationalist policies: sociology, philosophy, economics, and international relations, as well as the natural sciences themselves. — Sandra G. Harding

I actually think that one of the most dangerous phenomena is the bowing to expertise, whether it's in international relations or how to use technologies. — Wes Boyd

On international relations, Eleanor Roosevelt really takes a great shocking leadership position on the World Court. In fact, it amuses me. The very first entry in her FBI file begins in 1924, when Eleanor Roosevelt supports American's entrance into the World Court. And the World Court comes up again and again - '33, '35. In 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt goes on the air; she writes columns; she broadcast three, four times to say the US must join the World Court. — Blanche Wiesen Cook

I never planned on being an actress, just as I never planned on being a model. I went to law and international-relations school. It wasn't my direction. It kind of happened to me. And because it wasn't my dream when I started, I wasn't starstruck. — Gal Gadot

Honesty is the best policy in international relations, interpersonal relations, labor, business, education, family and crime control because truth is the only thing that works and the only foundation on which lasting relations can build. — Ramsey Clark

If you cloned JFK and Abraham Lincoln and made them president it wouldn't matter. Our system is just too corrupt and too broken. I think that science is corrupt and broken. I think health and nutrition. I think the economic systems, the international relations, the environment, everything, the engines of everything are broken. — Rainn Wilson

If the resources of different nations are treated as exclusive properties of these nations as wholes, if international economic relations, instead of being relations between individuals, become increasingly relations between whole nations organized as trading bodies, they inevitably become the source of friction and envy between whole nations. — Friedrich August Von Hayek

I've led three lives: the acting part, wife and mother - which is a career - and international relations. I'm proud of my career, the first one, and I'm proud of the other two, too. — Shirley Temple

The "compleat diplomat" of the future should remain cognizant of realism's emphasis on the inescapable role of power, keep liberalism's awareness of domestic forces in mind, and occasionally reflect on constructivism's vision of change. — Stephen M. Walt

We have evidence all around us in our daily analytic practice and in contemporary world history that this earth-shaking archetypal event is taking place here and now. It has already started. It is manifesting itself in international relations; in the breakdown of the social structures of Western civilization; in political, ethnic, and religious groupings; as well as within the psyches of individuals- the momentous event of the coming of the self into conscious realization. — Edward F Edinger

The culturalization of politics analytically vanquishes political economy, states, history, and international and transnational relations. It eliminates colonialism, capital, caste or class stratification, and external political domination from accounts of political conflict or instability. In their stead, "culture" is summoned to explain the motives and aspirations leading to certain conflicts — Wendy Brown

In writing the first edition of Japan's International Relations we aimed to provide a comprehensive analysis of Japan as a normal state, rather than as an aberrant or abnormal state. — Glenn D. Hook

International peace negotiations need more value creation than value claiming. The more we create value for peace and development, the easier it is going to be to claim value for nuclear weapons free world. — Amit Ray

That's the key to walking through the Wall.... You have to first see it as not being a Wall, even though everyone you know still sees it as a Wall. — Kevin J. Shay

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. — Mohsin Hamid

War made the state, and the state made war — Charles Tilly

What is ... disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause ... The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress. — Cynthia McKinney

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim. — George Washington

Line of control must be renamed as garden of love and the barbed wire fencing should be replaced by the garden of flowers. — Amit Ray

To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous. — Kenneth Waltz

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations. — Mohamed ElBaradei

[Internationa] Aid is just another praetorian business enterprise. — Arundhati Roy

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus' - blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. — Noam Chomsky

Now, for the moment, we are safe. The only kind of international violence that worries most people in the developed countries is terrorism: from imminent heart attack to a bad case of hangnail in fifteen years flat. We are very lucky people
but we need to use the time we have been granted wisely, because total war is only sleeping. All the major states are still organized for war, and all that is needed for the world to slide back into a nuclear confrontation is a twist of the kaleidoscope that shifts international relations into a new pattern of rival alliances. — Gwynne Dyer

Foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology. — Fareed Zakaria

Different subjects required different sitting arrangements, Azur explained. For politics, scattered and amorphous; for sociology, a neat triangle; for statistics, a rectangle; and for international relations, a parallelogram. But God has to be discussed in a circle, everyone on the circumference equidistant from the center, looking at one another's eyes. — Elif Shafak

These two opposed forms of social organization, the modern state and the market, have evolved together through recent centuries, and their mutual interactions have become increasingly crucial to the character and dynamics of international relations in our world. — Robert Gilpin

Bringing countries together above their conflicts require great minds and great hearts. — Amit Ray

The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation states, however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security. — Maurice Strong

The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite. — Vladimir Zhirinovsky

By the end of the third decade of this century, all of American life - politics, international relations, our homes, our jobs, our industries, the kind of cars we drive - will be forever transformed by the climate and energy challenge. — Joseph J. Romm

When diplomacy ends, War begins. — Adolf Hitler

It is an understatement to say that the time has arrived for a serious and open international dialogue regarding the possibility of future interplanetary relations. In no other area of human experience has so much evidence existed for so long, and yet been attended by such a paucity of serious research and analysis - at least in the civilian domain. While the subject matter of UFOs itself is extraordinary, it is the absence of a serious human response to it that is most extraordinary. — Steven M. Greer

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it's not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It's more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together. — Madeleine Albright

We do not have to dig deep into history to understand the reality. The examples of Saddam Hussain, who was executed after a sham trial and the case of Muammar Gaddafi, who killed after surrendering in broad daylight, have given enough factual reality to understand the painful truth. — Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Fifty-seven countries in the world, a third of the United Nations, do not recognize Israel. In a way, I think North Korea has better international relations than Israel. — Abdallah II Of Jordan

Obama's failure to close Guantanamo is yet another instance where the rhetoric of democratic and constitutional rights proved not useful for his international relations, relations which are always pursued in ways that continue to link and fortify securitarian power with the opening of new markets. — Judith Butler

The opportunities that Gorbachev created for international relations have also been missed, perhaps even lost - here, however, primarily because of the United States. — Stephen Cohen

God is the Lord of human history and of the personal history of every member of His redeemed family. — Margaret Clarkson

United Nations should be like a caring mother having many children. Its role is to grow trust and respect among the siblings with strong emotional bonds. — Amit Ray

As Hobbes remarked, in war, force and fraud are the cardinal virtues, and he regarded international relations as always potentially a condition of war. Cavour, one of the creators of a united Italy in the nineteenth century, is reported as remarking: 'What scoundrels we would be if we had done for ourselves what we have done for our country. — Kenneth Minogue