State Behavior Quotes

Democracies do not commit aggression.

No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

States are not moral agents.

Russia is an interesting place because they're extremely evil but they're not that good at implementing their evil.

I want to stress that at no time Bolivia acts untimely or irresponsibly.

… conduct unworthy of any State calling itself civilized and free.

A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.

Governments keep their promises only when they are forced, or when it is to their advantage to do so.

A lot of countries break (or go against) the international law.

Russia is not angry. It is focusing.

The rogue states have to be told that there are lines that cannot be crossed.

To admit error and cut losses is rare among individuals, unknown among states.

Beginning with the No Child Left Behind law and continuing today with Race to the Top, the federal emphasis on standardized assessments has become so excessive that it has modified state and district behavior in troubling ways.

Good or bad, political choices have an impact on the way country’s behave.

If Iran wants to be treated as a normal country, let it act like a normal country.

Nations are as equal as so many madmen or drunkards.

Threats must be credible if they are to influence the behavior of other states.

No intelligence system can predict what a government will do if it doesn't know itself.

If Iran wants their money back and wants to be treated like a normal nation, they need to act like a normal nation.

Cooperation requires a certain degree of trust between states. The threshold of trust required for cooperation depends on a set of variables including a state's relative power and costs of conflict…. conflict between trustworthy states is possible, when we see conflict it is a sign that one or both of the states are likely to be untrustworthy.

As states we act, in general, and in most cases, exactly like the individuals of whom our society is composed.

States are more like people than they are like anything else: they exist by purpose, reason, suffering, and joy. And peace between states is also like peace between people. It involves the willing renunciation of purpose, in the mutual desire not to do, but to be.

Iran does not yield easily in the standard tools of Western political analysis.

Iran can and should be a responsible state, not the leading state sponsor of terror.