Mercurius Politicus Quotes

We want our spying agencies spying on foreigners. That’s why we have them.

As a senator, I play an important role in crafting foreign policy.

The National Security Council's real role is to coordinate the various activities of the government of the United States in the furtherance of American foreign policy.

Issues of foreign policy have a place in every election for President.

I think it's in the hands of each head of state: the future of peace in his own country.

Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

The State Department desperately needs to be vigorously harnessed. It has too big a role to play in the formulation of foreign policy, and foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers.

The internal affairs of other countries has a big impact on American interests.

Having watched the form of our traitors for a number of years, I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.

If a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honor is no party question. The security of our great international trade is no party question; the peace of the world is much more likely to be secured if all nations realize fairly what the conditions of peace must be

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

The President has rarely leisure to give close or continuous attention to foreign policy.

The main challenge for American foreign policy in many places is not to influence relations between states but rather to influence events within states.

Foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers.

The English people would never consent to go to war for a cause in which England was not manifestly interested.

Congress cannot and should not run foreign policy.

Although she [America] might have had pressing provocations, yet she ought to have looked to this country as the guardian power to which she was indebted not only for her comforts, not only for her rank in the scale of civilization but for her very existence.

It is the President alone who must make the major decisions of our foreign policy.

But how does it happen, that all our information of what is transacting in Europe, should come through indirect Channels, or from the Enemy?

In vain do they worship peace at home, who cannot defend themselves against foreigners.

For decades to come the spy world will continue to be the collective couch where the subconscious of each nation is confessed.

Foreign policy involves a good deal of domestic policy.

America’s fundamental aspiration is the preservation of peace…. This can only be done on the basis of comprehensive and appropriate information.

I make a supreme appeal for the diplomatic intervention of Your Majesty’s government to safeguard the integrity of Belgium.