David K. Shipler Quotes

I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.

I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history.

I think that Benjamin Franklin felt very strongly in foreign policy in this world, that you needed to at least show some humility, especially when you were strong.

Scholars and historians have dubbed the last 100 years the American Century, and I think there can be little doubt that the Council on Foreign Relations helped to make it so.

Iraq now says that it will, after all, destroy its missiles. President Bush said, 'Please, I used to pull the same trick. There'd be an intervention, I'd make a big show of pouring out the liquor and then there was a case under the floorboards.'

Foreign policy - dealing as it does with the most charged political subjects of all, the safety and dignity of the nation - will always be political terrain particularly vulnerable to distortion and demagoguery.

War is but an instrument of international policy.

... American temptation to beleive that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

The very nature of executive decisions as to foreign policy is political, not judicial.

We were quite naïve about the use of American power.

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.

I think Haig will be foolish, but perhaps not quite as foolish as Kissinger was, because Haig doesn't have the education Kissinger had. Haig is a little more dangerous because, I fear, he believes what he says, whereas I never got that impression from Kissinger.

Politically, foreign policy never matters until it matters, and then it matters a lot.

On the world stage, Donald Trump will lead from strength.

Putin is very - not the smartest guy in the world.

What's interesting about the foreign policy establishment critique is, you know, I think the Blob and I have more in common in some ways than people might think, but also, what I was saying can be misread.

A mercurial plan of action may have worked in the Trump Organization board room, but it's a disastrous tactic in foreign affairs.

International relations bears more than a slight resemblance to the mafia.

I want to act in America's interest and stop making shallow, sweeping claims about countries we don't fully understand and hope everything will be fine in the end. I saw that happen and it didn't work.

Donald Trump didn't even understand, right, that [Vladimir] Putin was playing him. So, in Putin's mind, I have no doubt that Putin thinks that he's an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation, although Putin would never say that.

The origins of the principle of the balance of power are lost in the mists of history.

An International Congress [Summit]: the greatest of all Vanity Fairs …. Each Prime Minister thinks that he alone is capable of representing his country’s policy. Each Foreign Secretary thinks that the Premier knows nothing of diplomacy. Each professional ambassador thinks the same about his Foreign Secretary …. It is an orchestra of first violins.

Certainly American foreign policy in Greece is not fooling the Greeks … American foreign policy in Greece is not fooling the Russians… American foreign policy in Greece is not fooling American reporters. This leaves only the American people to be fooled …. I think it is time that the nonsense of fooling the Americans ceased.

One doesn't set aside reality in pursuing our interests abroad.

The United States may have to abandon its policy of avoiding entangling alliances.