Vladimir Putin Quotes
It has nothing to do with any kind of exchange or sale [of Kuril island to Japan]. It is about the search for a solution when neither party would be at a disadvantage, when neither party would perceive itself as conquered or defeated.
Putin, Vladimir. "Interview to Bloomberg." President of Russia, 2 Sept. 2016, en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52830.
His appeal was also in the name of concurring heads of state of Finland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Luxemburg, and Sweden.
FDR was hoping to defeat or at least stop Hitler and Germany by arming England and Russia and thus avoid having American troops committed. However. when the Japanese launched their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler immediately declared war on the United States, and our troops were suddenly in a two continent war.
This is an interesting historical quotation because it shows the role of the Queen in the English Government at the middle of the 19th century. What the quotation shows is that the drafts of significant foreign policies were sent to the young 29 year old Queen for approval. However, her review was not perfunctory, In {630732} it showed how she analyzed proposed policies and pointed out flaws and shortcomings. In this quotation she not only criticized a part of the draft policy but actually wrote her own copy to be included. War was then raging in Lombardy between the Austrians under Marshal Radetzky and the Piedmontese under the King of Sardinia and she believed the Palmerston draft did not do enough to make the Austrians see England as an objective party. And she wanted to be much more proactive and have the British Foreign Ministry mediate the conflict. This would be like a President of the United States taking a draft of a foreign policy from the State Department, instead of either approving or disapproving it, redrafts it to add some additional elements and make the language more comfortable for the parties. And she did this when by U. S. standards she was not old enough to even run for Congress. (And women in the United Kingdom could not even vote.) Note that the formality of the time required that the Queen refer to herself in the third person and not the first.
When there is a serious problem with another country and it appears that military force may have to be used, he and most sophisticated policy makers argue that we should always try diplomacy first. If that does not work, then the military option is still open. If it does work, war or other military action is always available as an option. When politicians do not want to try diplomacy, it is usually that they have an ulterior motive for war and/or military force. Some urge caution with this principle in all cases as sometimes it gives the enemy time to regroup and rearm and he gets stronger by stringing out the negotiations with no intention of a diplomatic solution. In some other cases, as Iran in the second decade of the 21st century when they were suspected of developing a nuclear weapon. The Israeli right wing and some American conservatives wanted no delay in use of military force as that might allow the Iranians to complete an operational message. President Obama and most Americans favored strong economic sanctions with diplomacy first.
The President was spending all day and most of the evening with Japanese and Russian negotiators. He was trying to mediate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. Despite all the difficulties, Roosevelt found a new skill of personal international diplomacy. The war seemed intractable, but Roosevelt was able to get a peace treaty signed for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It is doubtful that any modern president could spend so much concentrated time on an issue that was really not in the national interest of the United States. However, Roosevelt’s time and effort investment paid off in that by settling that dispute and getting nothing out of it for America or American business, the United States was in world opinion, elevated to a new status of fair, impartial and non-selfish international activity—a model that despite some lapses in later years, the United States has been unique.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who is serving as the current president of Russia since 2012, previously being in the office from 1999 until 2008. He was also prime minister from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2008 to 2012. As of 2021, Putin is the second-longest serving European president, after Alexander Lukashenko.
