Charles A. Kupchan Quotes

What good would politics be, if it didn’t give everyone the opportunity to make moral compromises?

He had no gifts for the compromises with human frailty which alone can grease the wheels of politics.

There is a lot of juggling between NATO commitment and domestic politics in most countries [belonging to NATO.]

There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two.

nations that talk democracy make dirty little secret deals with strategic allies who have no use for democratic values

How splendid it would have been had we blazed a new and better trail! However, it is to be doubted whether this could have been done, even if those in authority had so decreed, for the peoples back of them had to be reckoned with. It may be that Wilson might have had the power and influence if he had remained in Washington and kept clear of the Conference. When he stepped from his lofty pedestal and wrangled with representatives of other states upon equal terms, he became as common clay.

In statesmanship get the formalities right, never mind about the moralities.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses; they last while they last.

The 'morality of compromise' sounds contradictory. Compromise is usually a sign of weakness, or an admission of defeat. Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

There will be a meeting of the great powers who will disagree, and the next noise we hear will be the screeching of elevators going up and down from heaven to hell.

From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned.

Thou shalt not steal. I mean defensively. On offense, indeed thou shall steal and thou must.

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

You make a deal. You figure out how much sin you can live with.

Morality and expediency coincide more than the cynics allow.

When you join the CIA, you have to make some peace with whether you are comfortable psychologically and philosophically, with the use of force and using it clandestinely.

Governments acting in a crisis are guided by questions of expediency, and moral considerations are given very little weight, and that America is no different from any other nation in this respect.

When it comes to international negotiations it cannot all be kept confidential and secret. There must be a way of preparing publics for what is being negotiated.

One must be especially wary of an Administration that seems to feel that what it judges to be a good end, always justifies any means.

It seems to me to matter little whether you have an alliance which is committed to paper, or whether you have an understanding in the minds of the statesmen of the respective countries.

We won't make concessions [to terrorists] but other governments can make them on our behalf.

Governments almost never act with moral clarity and for very good reason. They are dealing with competing interests.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

Americans must reconcile themselves to limited objectives and work in congress with others, for an essential part of American power is the ability to evoke support from others---an ability quite as important as the capacity to compel.