Bob Hawke Quotes

When our interests matched, the Americans have been good to us, and when the interests differed, they wanted us to mold ourselves to them, which we refused.

I, as prime minister, never went to Washington. Certainly never went to a presidential ranch. I hate to say this, but I wasn't going to be the pilot fish to the shark, whereas Australia quite happily bobbed along like a happy little pilot fish with a shark who was a messy eater, and I just couldn't feel like that.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

Governments interfere in the affairs of each other, when they conceive their own peace is endangered.

All foreign policy is the intervention of one nation's domestic politics into another nation's domestic politics.

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.

Foreign policy is the most constraining form of policy-making

Regardless of some disagreements in the past with Dr. Kissinger, I personally had a very good relationship with the secretary when I served as ambassador to the United States and later on as premier.

I've reminded the prime minister-the American people, Mr. Prime Minister, over the past months that it was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship.

As far as my relationship with President Putin is concerned, it's fine.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

The law of nations is naturally founded on this principle, that different nations ought in time of peace to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war as little injury as possible, without prejudicing their real interests.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

I have spent time discussing the American political system and current events in Taiwan with the junior diplomats, and they have repeatedly expressed their country's desire to avoid confrontation with China.

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

Mr. Speaker, in seeking to return to the United Nations, the Republic of China on Taiwan will once again ask diplomatic allies to present its case before the United Nations this fall.

When a peace agreement is concluded between the Lebanese government and Israel, we would surely disagree with the Lebanese government about that, but we would not make any turmoil out of it.

The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.

I think that the president of Iran has the authority wherever which - where - wherever the national interests of the country are involved and, when it is necessary and expedient and required to speak and talk with others in order to promote the rights of its nation, that the president can take that initiative.

Foreign policy is effectively the assertion of many individual countries intersecting on the global marketplace. And you have to figure out how to get your interest served in a way that meets the interests and needs of these other folks.

Nobody will be allowed to use Pakistan soil for any form of aggression toward any friend or foe.

Insofar as international law is observed, it provides us with stability and order and with a means of predicting the behavior of those with whom we have reciprocal legal obligations.

But, although America cannot be justly charged with violating the rights of Turkey, Turkey nevertheless can be justly charged with violating the rights of America.

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.