Stephen Kinzer Quotes

Each state claims the right to control interests foreign to itself when those interests are such that it can control them without putting its own interests in danger. ... other powers only recognize this right of intervening in proportion as the country doing it has the power to do it.

Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

No nation has friends only interests.

What Ottawa and Washington used to think about Turkey or Iran was not very important because we really didn't think much about either, but now what we think about them is extremely important - to ourselves and to many other peoples.

... American temptation to beleive that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

It is the natural desire of each nation to use the other as an instrument of its own purposes and policies. By dint of our mutual dependence, your influence is amplified by our power. Our power is made more responsible and more effective by your influence.

The moment it became in the interests of one or the other of the Great Powers to alter the status quo, none of these treaty structures ever stood in the way of such alteration.

Democratically elected leaders, forced to accommodate the real forces that shape their nation-state’s future—capital and the economic and military interests of more-powerful states—do so only to face the ire of their own citizens, who see themselves (perhaps rightly) as the losers of these compromises.]

So much of our foreign policy is based on other people’s weakness.

It looks like the so-called "winners" of the Cold War are determined to have it all, and reshape the world into a place that could better serve their interests alone.

I'm in favour of a multi-polar world. I believe that every country has the right to defend its own interests.

I personally don't believe that Russia and China are on Maduro's side - they are simply protecting their investments here in Venezuela.

The U.S. should never get involved where we have no clear national interest. We should not intervene militarily in a country like Syria, where we can’t separate friend from foe and might end up arming the very people who hate us the most.

I have respect for leaders who defend the interests of their countries. Angela Merkel policies are positive for Germany, but they are unfortunately harmful for all other countries.

I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.

With respect to Russia, my principal approach to Russia has been constant since I first came into office. Russia is an important country. It is a military superpower. It has influence in the region and it has influence around the world.

I think it is a very natural tendency for the nations to increase their influence in the international space, as they pursue their international relations with different countries.

[Vladimir] Putin spoke unabashedly about the importance of national sovereignty in Syria, a concept apparently near and dear to his heart, unless it comes to the sovereignty of Georgia, Ukraine or any other country in which he intervenes. Then he offered his cooperation, but without making any concrete concessions at all. And he didn't have to, either. He knows what he can rely on. He has assets that are more valuable than words: He has tanks in Ukraine, fighter jets in Syria - and Barack Obama in the White House.

If you want to lower the significance of Russia in the world, you actually just want to elevate your own country. That is a mistake.

Geopolitical interests are behind the so-called war on drugs and terrorism.

What's happening in Russia of course is you have a country watching out for its national interest.

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.

The lessons are, unfortunately, that a small weak country that is facing an extremely hostile and very violent superpower will not make much progress unless there's a strong solidarity movement within the superpower that will restrain its actions. With more support within the United States, I think the Haitian efforts could have succeeded.

The reputation of those countries which cater to the foreign policy interests of other states at the expense of their own national interests will go down regardless of how they explain their actions.