Ehud Barak Quotes

… realpolitik

[Describing Russia:] ... the most realistic regime in the world—no ideals.

When it comes to foreign policy, the American people will ultimately reward not the party with the most ambitious vision but the party with the most sober and realistic one.

A supreme pragmatist, Kissinger was never interested in the art of the impossible - and nor, as a biographer, am I. That is why, having initially been invited to write his entire official biography, I eventually decided to devote myself to writing just one year in his life: 1973.

The principle of realism means denial of the ideal.

I'm cheering for America as always. Our interest ought to come first and to the extent that making temporary alliances with other countries serve our interests, I met in favor of that. Making sweeping moral claims comparing people to Hitler advances the ball not one that blinds us to reality.

If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly.

Realism is important in foreign policy. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve, and about the pitfalls, and problems along the way, of which there are plenty. Nothing is easy. It's always rough.

A lack of realism in the vision today costs credibility tomorrow.

The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principles. What President Nixon and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn't make it.

I don't believe in ideology in international relations.

Britain rightly sees herself as a global good citizen, but she must reconcile ambition with power, ends with means - shedding utopian idealism in favour of a more rugged internationalism, putting the national interest first, not last.

The most important thing is to simultaneously deal with reality - really the way it is, not the way you wished it could be or you hoped it could be - but also have a vision about where you want to go.

We have no eternal allies, and we have not perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

...foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.

Don't mistake the Russia you want to exist for the Russia that there actually is. Be realistic.

Idealism without realism is impotent. Realism without idealism is immoral.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

The stated objective and the mission of Vladimir Putin's Russia is to destabilize the North Atlantic Alliance.

It is a maxim, founded on the universal experience of mankind, that no nation is to be trusted farther than it is bound by its interest; and no prudent statesman or politician will venture to depart from it.

Leaders must see reality as it is, not as it ought to be.

Vladimir Putin likes Donald Trump because he supports this view of the world, that the big guys can carve it up, sit and talk about the world, carve up the countries, shape borders. For Putin, treaties, alliances, Nato, the EU are stumbling blocks.

I think the Russians are trying to figure out what to do. I don't think they know what to do with our president Donald Trump. I don't think they know what to do with the situation. They've been isolated when it comes to Syria and they're trying to figure out what their place in the world is going to be.

I don't think I have grand visions that I will never achieve.

Highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extreme naivete.