Kofi Annan Quotes
Sometimes in peacekeeping operations you show force in order not to use force - people realise that there's a pushback and there's a solid force there that's not going to be pushed around, that sometimes helps.
Annan, Kofi. Interventions: A Life in War and Peace. Penguin Press, 2012.
Clark had commanded the American and NATO forces in the Serbian War where all the military and political objectives were accomplished with heavy losses to the Serbian’s and none to the allied side—what many think was the most successful war in American History. Like Eisenhower in WWII one great challenge was the political and strategic one of keeping the coalition of all the allied governments working together. His perspective had been like Eisenhower’s which was much wider and geopolitical than most military officers.
He argues that even if the concession to terrorists is seemingly small, there is much greater damage in that the minimal concession will also stimulate more attempts to gain other victories. See {629723} for his complementary statement on dealing with terrorists.
They referred to the George W. Bush Administration. The Powell Doctrine, created by then Secretary of State when he was Chairman of the Joint Chief’s of Staff stated that if American Troops were ever to be used in combat, they should be deployed in massive overwhelming force and have a clear exit strategy. Powell lost the internal argument and was marginalized, but he turned out to be absolutely right.
This appears to be the first American utterance of a longstanding doctrine of foreign policy.
With Germany’s WWII history of military aggression, even over 60 years later, that country was very cautious about any use of military force and unilateral force was out of the question.
Kofi Atta Annan was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founder and chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as chairman of The Elders, an international organization founded by Nelson Mandela.
