George Ball Quotes

Americans must step back and realize that an effective foreign policy is very difficult to devise, and we must present a united front to make it work.

There are legitimate, even powerful arguments, to be made against the Bush administration's foreign policy. But those arguments are complicated, hard to explain, and, in the end, not all that sensational.

The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

Foreign policy is about choosing from nasty options.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

Time after time … when policy makers confronted a conflict between foreign policy and domestic interests, the diplomatic imperative prevailed.

You do not build a foreign policy based on one man.

All foreign policy is the intervention of one nation's domestic politics into another nation's domestic politics.

Would it not be worthwhile to pause a moment before we commit ourselves to war at the pleasure of other nations in whose councils we shall have but one vote?

The art of foreign policy is to help guide the inevitable.

You cannot have individual foreign policy. You cannot have celebrity foreign policy.

[Sanctions] make us feel like a player in foreign policy where our powers tend to be more limited …. We’re less patient with diplomacy.

I don’t think that we should ever apply our military power unilaterally…. If we cannot persuade like-minded, friendly nations of the wisdom of our policy, then maybe we should rethink the policy.

The very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial.

Foreign policy should be strategic, not tactical.

Even allies don’t share every single interest that you have. That’s a law of nature in the international system. They will tell you most of what you need to know but there may be some things that they don’t tell you that you need to know in order to formulate your policy as wisely as you can.

For foreign policy it is necessary to have men who inspire confidence.

People think that it only takes an American decision to solve this or that problem [in foreign affairs].

You can't wing foreign policy.

Foreign policy can no longer be the province of just a few elites.

In international relations, you don't base your work on hope.

No one wants to friend or follow covert info about Pakistan's nuclear policy.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.