Leon Panetta Quotes

If a great country yields to a small country, it will conquer the small country. If a small country yields to a great country, it will be conquered by the great country.

Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.

Diplomacy is not merely talking somebody into something; it's talking to somebody from a position of strength. You put your power on the table to open up the conversation; that's diplomacy.

From Mr. [Donald] Trump's perspective, right, he simply heard [Vladimir] Putin compliment him. He then responded by complimenting him. He never thought that he might be being played.

You have to negotiate from positions of strength. And right now with Iran, we're not negotiating from a position of strength. The Europeans are negotiating from the position of "Please give up your nuclear weapons program, and by the way if you do we'll give you several boatloads of carrots." The Iranians are quite willing to keep on negotiating on that line for a long time.

I think to deal with Putin, you need to deal from strength. He's a bully, you enable bad behavior when you're nuanced with a guy like that.

Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.

It was not that the Americans lacked the capacity to force their allies into line… What is surprising is how rarely this happened…

Russia has been too weak, and the weak get beaten.

Diplomacy and force are two sides of the same coin.

Every time we oppose a sanction [internationally proposed], we lesson our influence.

In relations with other nations, there is neither right nor wrong; there is only strength and weakness.

Whenever the [Ottoman] Turks begin to be troublesome, send embassies to the West at once, offer to accept union, and protract negotiations to great length. The Turks so greatly fear such union that they will become reasonable. And still, the union will not be accomplished because of the enmity of the Latin nations.

So much of our foreign policy is based on other people’s weakness.

I've learned over the years to hear what Putin is railing against in his own railing way.

Every foreign policy of every major nation involves reason, common sense, carrots and sticks. You can't have all carrots and no sticks.

Nixon is a strong leader with a good grasp of the world's problems. He knows that the only way to argue with the communists is from a position of strength.

Trump has got to define what he seeks to achieve with Russia, and then use diplomacy and sometimes coercion to achieve those ends. Right now, aside from this fight with ISIS, which I would underscore, you know, the Obama administration has been trying to fight ISIS with Russia for several years now.

The Patriots deflated balls are but an allegory for America's deflated balls in dealings with Putin, the Mullahs in Iran, and Islamic terrorists.

Diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power.

I think we can't be naive in dealing with the Russians or dealing with the Syrians. But at the same time, I think we could try to encourage - and I think this is what diplomacy should do - encourage the self-interests of all parties to believe that it is in their best interest to get evil actors or rogue actors such as Syria or Iran, if you try to have less belligerent and less bellicose behavior.

There is -- in world affairs -- a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.

Many politicians in the West cling to the notion of a partnership with Russia. They want to include [Vladimir] Putin, make compromises and constantly negotiate new deals with him. But history has taught us that the longer we pursue appeasement and do nothing, the higher the price will be later on. Dictators don't ask "Why?" before they seize even more power. They ask: "Why not?"

Yet, when one thinks of it, diplomacy without force is a but a rotten reed to lean upon.

It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States.