Vladimir Putin Quotes

No great power will allow itself to be strangulated.

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

I think that most people believe that Russia, because of its - it has regained some of its military strength. And they do rattle the saber a bit. It wants to be a player.

I am proud of Russia and I am sure that the vast majority of Russian citizens have great love and respect for their Motherland. We have much to be proud of: Russian culture and Russian history. We have every reason to believe in the future of our country. But we have no obsession that Russia must be a super power in the international arena. The only thing we do is protecting our vital interests.

I saw that the incorporation of Texas into this Union would be indispensable both to her safety and ours. I saw that it was impossible she could stand as an independent power between us and Mexico without becoming the scene of intrigue of foreign powers, alike destructive of the peace and security of both Texas and ourselves.

Foreign policy is an explicitly amoral enterprise.

The U.S. must differentiate between controversial assertions of power, like those in the South China Sea, and fair reflections of China's growing contribution to the world, such as the new banks.

Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.

Russia knows of the vulnerability of her frontiers in this part of the world.

The U.S. needs to control the Middle East, the gateway to Asia. It already has military installations in Uzbekistan.

Britain is a European power. We cannot change our geography. Our involvement in the politics of European cooperation is one of necessity. Our wealth and our security depend upon it.

Nobody will be allowed to use Pakistan soil for any form of aggression toward any friend or foe.

It is essential in the highest interests, not merely of this country, but of the world, that Britain should at all hazards maintain her place and her prestige amongst the Great Powers of the world. Her potent influence has many a time been in the past, and may yet be in the future, invaluable to the cause of human liberty. It has more than once in the past redeemed Continental nations, who are sometimes too apt to forget that service, from overwhelming disaster and even from national extinction

The reason for having diplomatic relations [with Communist China] is not to confer a compliment, but to secure a convenience.... British policy has always been that you recognize when ... Government truly has control. It's not a question of whether you like them or not.

Power is a necessary condition for enduring foreign-policy success but not a sufficient one.

Foreign policy is not philanthropy.

In the United Nations, the United States can almost always get its way…. The United States has the ability to make the United Nations work or not work---if it cares enough.

If Americans are entitled to hit Iraq unilaterally, then why isn't Russia entitled to the same with respect to Georgia? Why is China not entitled to the same with respect to some other neighboring country which, according to Chinese views, may be supporting insurrection in Tibet or Shenyang? Why, say, India is not entitled to hit Pakistan, which openly supports terrorists in Kashmir and which has nuclear weapons, and which has a very fragile domestic situation under which fundamentalists any day can come to power

What really matters for great powers is power—national economic and military strength—and that speaks loudly and clearly for itself.

Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

We are a great, powerless country.

The U. S. is not the Boss, not the Boss any longer.

Russia is living proof that hard power is brittle without the other dimensions of great-power status.

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.

Russia is not angry. It is focusing.