Anne Applebaum Quotes

Under the ominous shadow which the second World War and its attendant circumstances have cast on the world, peace has become as essential to civilized existence as the air we breathe is to life itself.

I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn't worked.

Roosevelt was the one who had the vision to change our policy from isolationism to world leadership. That was a terrific revolution. Our country's never been the same since.

American foreign policy had still not recovered from its victory over communism when George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice took over at the White House in 2001.

But, actually, it is only Americans who say that our freedoms and prosperity are the reason foreigners hate us. If you ask the foreigners, they make it clear that it's America's bullying foreign policy they detest.

An economically confident America has - since becoming a world power at the start of the 20th century - tended toward global engagement. It is during times of economic stress (1930s, 1970s) that America has become more withdrawn.

Republican isolationists had certainly tied the hands of every U.S. president, year after year - berating Franklin Roosevelt in particular and his attempts to ready the nation for inevitable attack.

[Writing of Harry Truman:] The 1947 assumption of responsibility in the Eastern Mediterranean, the 1948 grandeur of the Marshall Plan, the response to the blockade of Berlin, the NATO defense of Europe in 1949, and the intervention in Korea in 1950—all those constituted expanded action in truly heroic mold. All of them required rare capacity to decide and act.

No one can think intelligently on the many complicated problems of American foreign policy unless he decides first what he considers the real purpose and object of that policy…. Fundamentally, I believe the ultimate purpose of our foreign policy must be to protect the liberty of the people of the United States.

The United States … has never been isolated, never can be isolated, and has no desire to be isolated. The people of the United States are not only ready but willing and desirous to help their fellow-men, especially those of western civilization, in any way that is possible.

As long as Americans believe that their country has vital interests everywhere on earth, they will behave the same.

It seems the most common thing for serial interventionists to do these days is to lob the term 'isolationist' at anyone who does not agree with their latest folly, and then set up a straw man about those people not wanting to be involved in the world.

While Democrats, including Barack Obama, mocked the notion that Russia is the greatest threat to our country, nobody has been tougher on Russia and Vladimir Putin than President Donald Trump.

There is a widespread view among the liberal intelligentsia to the effect that Henry Kissinger, U.S. National Security Advisor from 1969 to 1975 and Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977, was a bad man. That may even be an understatement. In this fashionable consensus, he is not just a bad man: he is a war criminal.

The attitude of the American public toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent. The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

I believe, and always have, that America must engage - not retreat - in the world.

If the United States disengages from many issues confronting the international community it will be replaced.

President Obama came to office with a strong belief that America had overreached, that we had become too involved. It matched the national mood, and indeed, there was some evidence that it was true.

George W. Bush is always protesting that he has the fate of the world in mind and bangs on about the 'freedom-loving peoples' he's seeking to protect. I'd love to meet a freedom-hating people.

All over the world, the Trump administration is pursuing a range of policies: tweeting insults at Maduro, negotiating with a defiant North Korea, sending a small fleet of warships to the Persian Gulf to intimidate Iran. But the speed with which the president always sours on these efforts means they can never be part of any discernible strategy.

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.

There was time in the first half of the '80s when what I was saying on the stage was controversial. A lot of things I was talking about - Nicaragua and American foreign policy.

The United States is undergoing a transformation in how it relates to the rest of the world. We are becoming a nation that has no more negotiators and peacemakers, that shoots first and asks questions later.

What is happened in the years since the Second World War is not a temporary truce. It is not simply a ceasefire. Instead of battling with weapons and armaments, people battle only with arguments and ideas.

Unlike President Obama, I would say that I support the long-standing bipartisan post-war belief that American global strength and leadership secures our national-security interests, and it also promotes order and stability in the world. And it gives us immense influence in the world and deters our adversaries and reassures our allies.