William Shawcross Quotes

In one question you are expressing a world of opinion. Because it is you who thinks that America has been mistakenly starting these conflicts. I happen to agree with you, and I will repeat what your question suggested...we have mistakenly gotten into one fracas after another. Why we do that [United States has insisted on keeping up a string of enemies, and the wars associated with creating those enemies], I think it's because we're afraid to look in the mirror and understand who we are.

It is no exaggeration to say that Syria holds the key for nearly all of America's foreign policy goals in the Middle East. As Syria goes, so goes the region.

Historically, defense spending cuts have preceded increased international turmoil as America's global enemies sense a failure of will.

The secret of America is compromise. Compromise is a sign of weakness in any other country. In America it is a great strength.

I support the current operational position and tactics in Iraq, but we’re in a bad place, we didn’t need to be there, and we shouldn’t do it again.

We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard and the renewal of friendly relations as a move open to us. If Austria were severely injured, she would become the ally of France and of every other opponent of ours; she would even sacrifice her anti-Russian interests for the sake of revenge on Prussia.

A fatal mistake in war is to underrate the strength, feeling and resources of an enemy.

For the 30 years I have been involved with U. S. national security, our policy has been shaped by the assumption that we could shape other countries’ policies throughout the world. This has always been a bit of a myth.

America remains the indispensable nation. There are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression.

There is, however, much to be said for the division of this great area [the Ruhr valley], as at present, rather than its union under a single state which would have, in war and peace, a practical monopoly of iron and steel on the Continent.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

The potential for regional conflict in the absence of an internationally active America is real.

Yes, Obama took over two wars from Bush - just as President Richard Nixon inherited Vietnam from President Lyndon Johnson and President Dwight Eisenhower inherited Korea from President Harry Truman. But at least the war in Iraq was all but won by 2009, thanks largely to the very surge Obama had opposed as a senator.

America's foreign policy lacks the backbone to do the right thing in Afghanistan - which is leave.

Charlie Rangel is angry about the Iraq war, the one that Henry Kissinger has told us we can't win. Thanks, Henry, but most Americans figured that out before you did. Rangel saw combat in Korea. Kissinger has only seen combat on TV. That might have something to do with why Kissinger thinks our troops should stay in Iraq even though we can't win.

Not every threat to America's national interests can be addressed with military power.

America never formally surrenders, so we have to call surrender something else. In Vietnam, we called it Vietnamization.

America needs an adult in the White House who knows how to deal with China.

America went into Iraq. We shouldn't have gone into Iraq. We shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. The world is a total mess.

I believe he [Saddam Hussein] wants a better relationship with America.

If we have to use force, it is because we are America.

Today, America has become one of the most powerful forces for good on earth. We must keep it so.

The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. This should've been one of the easiest military occupations in history and they succeeded in turning it into one of the worst military disasters in history. They can't control it and it's almost impossible for them to get out for reasons you can't discuss in the United States because to discuss the reasons why they can't get out would be to concede the reasons why they invaded.

When someone makes a move Of which we don't approve, Who is it that always intervenes? U.N. and O.A.S., They have their place, I guess, But first send the Marines!

I can't take anything off the table. Because you look at some of these countries, you look at North Korea, we're doing nothing there. China should solve that problem for us. China should go into North Korea. China is totally powerful as it relates to North Korea.