Wesley Clark Quotes

Today we will find most nations to be both our partners and our adversaries—sometimes simultaneously.

It is the natural desire of each nation to use the other as an instrument of its own purposes and policies. By dint of our mutual dependence, your influence is amplified by our power. Our power is made more responsible and more effective by your influence.

Alliances do have to deal with political realities.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

The moment it became in the interests of one or the other of the Great Powers to alter the status quo, none of these treaty structures ever stood in the way of such alteration.

Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none or a very remote relation, hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Finally we are a nation with some conscience. It means alliances are extremely important when they're based on a national interest. We have to have the ability to sustain our presence within those alliances.

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

All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence.

The international community lies at the center of the Obama foreign policy. Unfortunately, it is a fiction. There is no such thing. Different countries have different histories, geographies, necessities, and interests. There's no natural, inherent, or enduring international community.

In these days of intimate relations, of economic stress and of intense desire to protect national interests and advance national opportunity, the treatment of questions which, from a legal standpoint, are domestic, often seriously affects international relations. The principle, each nation for itself to the full extent of its powers, is the principle of war, not of peace.

Foreign policy is about choosing from nasty options.

Great powers engage.

If the whole of the 20th century has taught us anything, it has taught us that borders must be respected.

Would it not be worthwhile to pause a moment before we commit ourselves to war at the pleasure of other nations in whose councils we shall have but one vote?

I should drag in the United States.

You should never make alliances with a decadent nation like France and a semi-barbarous nation like Russia

There is no such thing as gratitude in international politics.

Even allies don’t share every single interest that you have. That’s a law of nature in the international system. They will tell you most of what you need to know but there may be some things that they don’t tell you that you need to know in order to formulate your policy as wisely as you can.

We need to quit appeasing our adversaries, and we need to stand with our allies.

We have no eternal allies, and we have not perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.

All nations want peace, but they want a peace that suits them.

The reputation of those countries which cater to the foreign policy interests of other states at the expense of their own national interests will go down regardless of how they explain their actions.

Like other countries in the world, China must uphold its own sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests. At the same time, we are willing to properly handle differences and disagreements in state-to-state relations.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.