John Howard Quotes

In a world in which the United States does less, whatever set of calculations, other countries will tend to calculate - to move in one of two ways. Either they will assuage or, to use a more loaded term, appease the strongest power in the neighborhood with all the consequences of that, or they will determine to take matters into their own hands.

Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.

You know, in the WikiLeaks cables, the Chinese discovered that Kevin Rudd was urging the Americans to keep the military option open against them. This is hardly a friendly gesture.

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

Just as the United States doesn't like others to take charge, other countries also don't like the United States to play a dominant role in the United Nations.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

You should never make alliances with a decadent nation like France and a semi-barbarous nation like Russia

It has become increasingly clear that Pakistan’s chief aim in aligning with the West was to gain support against India

Our inaction created the opportunity for the Russians to reenter the Middle East in a powerful way for the first time since 1973.

What vital U.S. interest is imperiled in who comes to power in Podgorica, Montenegro? Why cannot Europe handle this problem in its own back yard?

All small countries have the same problems and concerns about being protected from larger countries and their influences.

Politics abhors a vacuum, and Asian countries will gravitate towards China if U.S. influence is perceived as declining.

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

The Sino-American competition involves two significant realities that distinguish it from the Cold War: neither party is excessively ideological in its orientation; and both parties recognize that they really need mutual accommodation.

It's never easy to be a small country next to a big neighbor.

Washington sees the various local and national conflicts in the Middle East as part of a battle for regional hegemony between the U.S. and Iran.

Like other countries in the world, China must uphold its own sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests. At the same time, we are willing to properly handle differences and disagreements in state-to-state relations.

President Nixon was a pragmatic strategist. He would engage, not contain, China, but he would also quietly set pieces into place for a fallback position should China not play according to the rules as a good global citizen.

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

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

Much of our national debate proceeds as if China and America were locked in a zero-sum game in which one's loss is precisely the other's gain.

Everybody pursues their national interests. The only one who gets blamed for it is the United States.