Fareed Zakaria Quotes
Making coercive diplomacy work requires a mix of threats and promises—sticks and carrots.
Fareed Zakaria, Editor, Foreign Affairs, Time & Newsweek International, Commentator and Host, The Global Public Square, CNN Global Public Square, January 13, 2013
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
With promises the success lies in following through and keeping the promise which is usually very costly. A threat that fails meanwhile can be the most expensive thing. We make a threat to deter a foreign power from something. Failure occurs when they are not intimidated and go ahead anyway. Then if we follow through on the threat, that is very costly—a war, a trade embargo, or whatever. Not following through on the threat is the costliest of all as we lose our credibility, trust and honor.
The great European powers were attending an International Congress—Summit Meeting of the heads of government and their diplomats to deal with the crisis of Tsarist Russian military expansionism. None of the other European powers of the time wanted or could afford war so Russia could only be thwarted by Great Britain. There were many in England who thought that the British should not even attend and should send troops immediately. The Queen and the Royal Family were among those. At the Congress Disraeli, who had much personal affection for Queen Victoria, wanted to reassure her. 1st Earl of Beaconsfield. If the Congress did not succeed the mainland of Europe would have been at war. Disraeli obtained everything England wanted. See Russian Ambassador Prince Gortchakoff’s observation.
Iraq’s program of mass destruction weapons development
At the time the United States was leading a very effective set of economic sanctions against Iran for the express purpose of pressuring them to abandon their nuclear development program that could also be used for nuclear weapons development.
Instructing the navy not to act precipitously during the Cuban missile crisis:
This view maintains that a nation must be willing to use force and appear to others that it is willing if it is to get any benefit from soft power. Others disagree.
Fareed Rafiq Zakaria is an Indian-American journalist, political commentator, and author. He is the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS and writes a weekly paid column for The Washington Post. He has been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large of Time.
