Diplomatic Failure Quotes
In this case, the Speaker of the House attacked the President of his own party for being willing to conduct disarmament discussions with the Russians. He implied that the outcome could be the appeasement of the Russians just as British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler in 1938 in Munich, giving the German Fuhrer the “green light” to take over Europe. The Conservative Caucus went even further and explicitly called it “appeasement”. Reagan however always talked about military strength and power, and provided plenty of money for the military and weapons a few of which were boondoggles but he was a very cautious American president in authorizing military force. And he not only was willing to discuss arms control and reductions and enter into treaties for disarmament, much to the distress of the hawks of his own party. Few American Presidents have so well balanced the use of diplomacy with the threat of military force as well as Reagan.
Describing the Munich Pact with Germany:
See Cordell Hull quotation, June 21, 1945
3rd Viscount Palmerston. This historical quotations illustrates the worst of the British Empire. British merchants were making large profits shipping opium to China and selling it there. Drug addiction became a major problem and some local Chinese Authorities passed laws banning the importing and selling of opium. However, the English merchant ship captains paid no attention to these laws claiming their rights as Englishmen to free trade. The Chinese finally seized a number of shipments of opium and burned them. The British then appointed Captain Elliot to lead a squadron of ships to China, arrange for payment in compensation for the value of the seized opium and to open up the opium trade, by force if necessary. The Chinese position was not unreasonable and Captain Elliot was not able to secure the concessions the English government wanted without starting a small war with the loss of many lives. Temple, who was the Foreign Minister at this time, fired Elliot and replaced him with someone who was less concerned about problems of drug addiction and the Chinese. Thus began the First Opium War. Note that the then British view of equity was that if they had to send an expedition of ships and soldiers to force the Chinese to allow the English to sell opium, then part of the terms must be that the Chinese pay the costs for the British ships and soldiers who invaded their country and forced them to keep poisoning their own people. See {621319} for Captain Elliot’s view.
The ambassador had received a public hearing under the assumption that the meeting would be perfunctory. Instead he used the occasion to protest the Queen's quarrels with the Spanish as it was affecting Polish merchants. Such a public complaint to a sovereign was a breach of diplomatic etiquette at the time.
See {641688} for a similar criticism of the Obama Syria policy.
