Wilhelm II, German Emperor Quotes

We can’t always pick and choose which conflicts were going to get into.

Now the situation is perilous, and the Powers are glaring at us like tigers eyeing their prey, all trying to barge into our country. Considering the financial and military situation in China today, we will of course try and avoid a war … But if our powerful enemies try and force us to yield to demands to which we cannot possibly consent, then we shall have no other alternative but to rely on the justice of our cause and to unite and fight.

Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy: Don't do to other nations what we don't want happening to us. We endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why they get upset with us?

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

But which is the State's essential function, aggression or defence, few seem to know or care.

Wherever there's injustice, oppression, and suffering, America will show up six months late and bomb the country next to where it's happening.

We're not trying to start a war; we're trying to send a political message.

The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government

If this phrase of “the balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting …

Sanctions are not diplomacy; they are a precursor to war.

Serbia must now be dealt with.

It's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.

America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution.

In international affairs, you never threaten things you're not prepared to do.

If there is no direct threat why are we invading?

People who attack others need rationalizations for doing so. We undermine those rationalizations.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

It was essentially for self defence that we went to war in Afghanistan and would go to war in Iraq.

It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

With regards to the expansion of NATO, I see it as a mistake, even a provocation in a way.

When the commander-in-chief sends Americans to fight and die, it should be only to protect our vital national interests, not for his own personal, political gain.

The missiles come first, and the justifications come second.

You can't give Russia the right to interfere with the internal affairs of counties in its area.... You have to drive up the cost to Russia for aggression.