Richard N. Haass Quotes

Statesmen should, you see, be very careful how they proceed to acts of positive hostility against the towns or inhabitants of any country with whom they ever intend to be on terms of alliance or kindness

I do not see it as desirable for South Korea to take the back seat and watch discussions between the U.S. and China.

No, [the U.S.] has made it clear that we consider a peaceful resolution an essential aspect of American foreign policy. This I believe to be a situation understood by China, but again, it is important to not sound too truculent. Taking on a billion-plus Chinese is not an enterprise which one should enter lightly.

We have to get tough with the Russians. They don't know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.

Many Europeans are concerned that stronger sanctions are a slippery slope toward war unless the U.S. is at the table.

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.

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

The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia.

I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history.

Throughout that period, Japan had made honest efforts to keep the destruction of war from spreading and, based on the belief that all nations of the world should find their places, had followed a policy designed to restore an expeditious peace between Japan and China.

Nowhere is it written that there must be conflict between the United States and China.

One of the many, many salutary aspects of Barack Obama's impending presidential nomination is the sea change his victory marks in the battle for the mind-set of the American foreign policy establishment.

I believe that democracies do not go to war; that's the lesson of history, and I think that a democratic Pakistan is the world community's best guarantee of stability in Asia.

... the greatest moral victory in the history of civilization if it actually keeps out of a war.

War is but an instrument of international policy.

The origins of the principle of the balance of power are lost in the mists of history.

There is not a conceivable enemy unless we create it, not a nation that would fight us if it could.

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

The management of a balance of power is a permanent undertaking, not an exertion that has a foreseeable end.

Heads of great governments in this hour are literally responsible for the fate of humanity in the coming years. They cannot fail to hear the prayers of their peoples to be protected from the foreseeable chaos of war. History will hold them accountable for the lives and the happiness of all--even unto the least.

We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard and the renewal of friendly relations as a move open to us. If Austria were severely injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia.

I think the Sino-American relationship is the most important geo-strategic question facing us.

Whether you're dealing with your allies in Europe or you're dealing with a resurgent Russia, whether you're dealing with Iran or North Korea, you have to use the whole panoply of national tools of power to deal with the challenges the world faces.

Whatever your views on Pakistan, our effort was that we have to engage Pakistan. They are our neighbours. We can choose our friends, but we cannot choose our neighbours.

America needs an adult in the White House who knows how to deal with China.