Daniel W. Drezner Quotes

You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done

Power alone is respected and ... in order to gain peace, the United States has no alternative but to wield it

Diplomacy and force are two sides of the same coin.

In the affairs of nations, too much hard power ends up breeding not submission but resistance. Likewise great soft power does not bend hearts; it twists minds in resentment and rage.

Diplomacy, is persuasion in the shadow of power.

Foreign policy works best when force and diplomacy are used together.

There’s no reason to respect anyone’s word in that part of the world. The only thing they respect is force and the threat of force.

We have to deal with it diplomatically if we can, militarily if we must.

What I have learned about Afghanistan is that force carries more weight than anything else.

There are two things that are very expensive in international relations: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail

Is a military solution the only way to stop nations from doing bad things?

To attempt to superimpose its views through the exercise of force, is seldom the part of intelligence; it is frequently the part of ignorance.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

You can't get a diplomatic solution unless behind that, is the threat of force.

Diplomacy, when matched by force, can achieve our objectives.

Foreign policy does not mean guns and rifles, but utilizing all legitimate international means to convince others.

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

There appears to be almost no way in which the deployment of military force ... could be brought rationally to bear upon the decision of any of the political, economic, emotional or philosophical issues by which men still remain divided.

UN administrators ... think that no problem in the world is too intractable to be solved by negotiation. These mandarins fail to grasp that men with guns do not respect men with nothing but flapping gums ... Just as the US Marine Corps breeds warriors, so the UN’s culture breeds conciliators.

Deterrence, of course, is all about the perception of power. It hinges on convincing adversaries that, with force, guile, or economic isolation, you can make the think twice about acting against American interests.

War is always an option. Peace is not.

The way that you get your diplomats listened to in an imperfect world is you make certain you back them up with hard power. The reason I say that is, as much as I’d like to live in a world where people who are out to do others harm would be willing to listen to rational thought, not everyone is.

Hard power makes sense under some circumstances. But there's not a universal solution to global problems.

We need to defend against weaknesses within and enemies without, using the tools of civil society and hard power. We don't have to pick one over the other.