International Relations Quotes

We do not have to dig deep into history to understand the reality. The examples of Saddam Hussain, who was executed after a sham trial and the case of Muammar Gaddafi, who killed after surrendering in broad daylight, have given enough factual reality to understand the painful truth. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

In writing the first edition of Japan's International Relations we aimed to provide a comprehensive analysis of Japan as a normal state, rather than as an aberrant or abnormal state. ~ Glenn D. Hook

How can you measure progress if you don't know what it costs and who has paid for it? How can the "market" put a price on things - food, clothes, electricity, running water - when it doesn't take into account the REAL cost of production? ~ Arundhati Roy

If it's wrong when they do it, it's wrong when we do it. ~ Noam Chomsky

Critical discussions of Western colonialism and imperialism and of what the term postcolonialism could mean, require, and enable first became acceptable in literature and cultural studies departments in the United States some three decades ago. Yet it has been much harder to create such discussions of sciences and technologies. Especially resistant are those departments where the West's scientific rationality and technical expertise have long been lovingly explained and "served up" for use in corporate and nationalist policies: sociology, philosophy, economics, and international relations, as well as the natural sciences themselves. ~ Sandra G. Harding

The agony of international relations is the need to try to practice politics without the basic conditions for political order. ~ Bernard Crick

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. ~ Anne O'Hare McCormick

For most of their history in China, Pugs were treasured dogs. By law, they could only be owned by nobility or by Buddhist monks. However, because they were held in such high regard, they were also used as pawns in international relations. In 732 C.E., China gave a Pug to Japan as a gift to cement diplomatic relations. The Japanese became infatuated with this dog, and it became the first of many given to Japanese diplomats. ~ Liz Palika

We need to manage holistically, embracing all of our science and traditional knowledge - all sources of knowledge. We can do that from the household to government to international relations. ~ Allan Savory

We must face the fact that international relations are governed by interests and not by moral principles. ~ B.H. Liddell Hart

We're taught to talk about the world as a world of as states conceived as unified, coherent entities. If you study international relations (IR) theory, there's what's called "realist" IR theory, which says there is an anarchic world of states and states pursue their "national interest." It's in large part mythology. There are a few common interests, like we don't want to be destroyed. But, for the most part, people within a nation have very different interests. The interests of the CEO of General Electric and the janitor who cleans his floor are not the same. ~ Noam Chomsky

The world must learn to work together, or finally it will not work at all. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

I see little hope for a peaceful world until men are excluded from the realm of foreign policy altogether and all decisions concerning international relations are reserved for women, preferably married ones. ~ W. H. Auden

People are kept unaware of the reality, with the sweet and illusive candy of nationalism. They are made to believe in their bones that killing people in the name of sovereignty is the most glorious act of all - they are made to believe that the citizens of the neighboring country are their arch-enemies - they are made to believe that nationality is far greater than humanity. They are made to believe that surgical strikes against the nation across the border is a great patriotic deed - they are made to believe that raising wall and separating children from their parents are deeds of great glory. In short, politicians (not all) in the government keep doing whatever they desire, and the citizens choose to keep their mouth silent in obedience because that to them is the greatest act of patriotism. In short, to these spineless citizens, their country is always right and the neighboring country is always wrong - their country is always good and the neighboring country is always evil - their country is always on the side of ethics and morality, and the neighboring country is always on the side of moral degradation. And this has been going on since the rise of human civilization across the world. When will this change, one wonders! And the answer is now. You change - just you - you the individual - you the one human - and slowly but surely, little by little, the entire society will change. ~ Abhijit Naskar

To call war the soil of courage and virtue is like calling debauchery the soil of love. ~ George Santayana

International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power ~ Hans J. Morgenthau

He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses. ~ Akkineni Nagarjuna

OBAMA'S FRUSTRATION WITH HIS critics boiled over during a lengthy trip to Asia in the spring of 2014. In the region, the trip was seen as another carefully designed U.S. effort to counter China. We'd go to Japan, to bring them into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) - weaving together twelve Asia Pacific economies into one framework of trade rules, environmental protections, and labor rights. We'd go to South Korea and discuss ways to increase pressure on North Korea. We'd go to Malaysia, something of a swing state in Southeast Asia, which we were bringing closer through TPP. And we'd end in the Philippines, a U.S. ally that was mired in territorial disputes with China over maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. ~ Ben Rhodes

It was far easier for me to see how the war in Syria was in part an unintended consequence of other American wars, no matter how well-meaning they might have been. The toppling of "Saddam Hussein had strengthened Iran, provoked Putin, opened up a Pandora's box of sectarian conflict that now raged in Iraq and Syria, and led to an insurgency that had given birth to ISIL. The toppling of Muammar Gaddafi had made plain to dictators that you either cling to power or end up dead in a sewer. Syria looked more and more like a moral morass - a place where our inaction was a tragedy, and our intervention would only compound the tragedy. Obama kept probing for options that could make a positive difference, finding none. ~ Ben Rhodes

Foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology. ~ Fareed Zakaria

Once war was considered the business of soldiers, international relations the concern of diplomats. But now that war has become seemingly total and seemingly permanent, the free sport of kings has become the forced and internecine business of people, and diplomatic codes of honor between nations have collapsed. Peace in no longer serious; only war is serious. Every man and every nation is either friend or foe, and the idea of enmity becomes mechanical, massive, and without genuine passion. When virtually all negotiation aimed at peaceful agreement is likely to be seen as 'appeasement,' if not treason, the active role of the diplomat becomes meaningless; for diplomacy becomes merely a prelude to war an interlude between wars, and in such a context the diplomat is replaced by the warlord. ~ C. Wright Mills

Terrorism has made our world an integrated community in a new and frightening way. Not merely the activities of our neighbors, but those of the inhabitants of the most remote mountain valleys of the farthest-flung countries of our planet, have become our business. We need to extend the reach of the criminal law there and to have the means to bring terrorists to justice without declaring war on an entire country in order to do it. For this we need a sound global system of criminal justice, so justice does not become the victim of national differences of opinion. We also need, though it will be far more difficult to achieve, a sense that we really are one community, that we are people who recognize not only the force of prohibitions against killing each other but also the pull of obligations to assist one another. This may not stop religious fanatics from carrying out suicide missions, but it will help to isolate them and reduce their support. ~ Peter Singer

In international relations, sometimes the best indicator of what someone is going to do is what he tells you he is going to do. And, since it is a religious obligation in Islam to warn your enemies in advance, there was reason to pay particular attention to what he had to say. ~ Michael Morell

The mentality of being the super power globally or regionally has contributed strongly to the development of very negative aspects to the political cohabitation the countries of the region than proving the capability of producing solutions that would meet the needs of the public. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

There is nothing glorious in the death of a soldier - it's only a disgusting reminder of our petty and primitive self-centeredness, that keeps separating us from our own kind, simply because of some illusory borders created by illusory governments. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations ~ J. William Fulbright

I'm a historian by training and by conviction. And so the thing that has throughout informed my thinking about international relations is history. I think, for example, the reason that I was perhaps able to see sooner than some others that the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe was decaying
if not disintegrating
was that I came to it through history and through Germany, rather than through Sovietology and through Moscow. And therefore the starting point was that no empire in history has lasted forever, and this one won't either. ~ Timothy Garton Ash

I had two different degrees: One in International Relations/Political Science and another degree in Radio and Television Production. ~ Hannah Simone

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it's not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It's more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together. ~ Madeleine Albright

A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security ~ Henry Kissinger

Because of new technologies, new wealth, new conditions of domestic life and of international relations, unprecedented criteria and issues are coming up for national decision. ~ Herman Kahn

Some international relations scholars would posit that interest in zombies is an indirect attempt to get a cognitive grip on what U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld famously referred to as the "unknown knowns" in international security. Perhaps, however, there also exists a genuine but publicly unacknowledged fear of the dead rising from the grave and feasting upon the entrails of the living. ~ Daniel Drezner

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. ~ Salman Khurshid

On international relations, Eleanor Roosevelt really takes a great shocking leadership position on the World Court. In fact, it amuses me. The very first entry in her FBI file begins in 1924, when Eleanor Roosevelt supports American's entrance into the World Court. And the World Court comes up again and again - '33, '35. In 1935, Eleanor Roosevelt goes on the air; she writes columns; she broadcast three, four times to say the US must join the World Court. ~ Blanche Wiesen Cook

We know that Donald Trump loves S.C.A.P.E.G.O.A.T.S. Now he has stooped to new lows - Separating Children And Parents Entering Gateways Of America Truly Sucks ! ~ Alex Morritt

Let's try to create a new habit of slow travel; let's forfeit the social media selfies and work on creating true links of friendship, mutual aid, trust and discovery when we are guests in other people's communities and homes. ~ Heather Marsh

The peace conference must not adjourn without the establishment of some ordered system of international government, backed by power enough to give authority to its decrees.Unless a league something like this results at our peace conference, we shall merely drop back into armed hostility and international anarchy. The war will have been fought in vain ... ~ Virginia Gildersleeve

Law is the essential foundation of stability and order both within societies and in international relations. ~ J. William Fulbright

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not. ~ Vladimir Putin

We have passed some of the dirtiest chapters of mankind. Perhaps we are heading towards further inhuman treatments in many places such as Syria and Palestine. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

I always wondered if the good people who send us bibles really think that hookworm and hunger are healed by scripture? Our patients are illiterate. ~ Abraham Verghese

It has always been my view that terrorism is not spawned by the poverty of money; it is spawned by the poverty of dignity. Humiliation is the most underestimated force in international relations and in human relations. It is when people or nations are humiliated that they really lash out and engage in extreme violence. ~ Thomas L. Friedman

War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished. ~ Julius Caesar

In any war, except that for freedom from oppression, victory of any nation, is the defeat of all nations, because each war comes at the cost of lives, in the name of the same old tribal loyalty. ~ Abhijit Naskar

Art has often been and continues to be considered transcendent. I see this as misguided and, in fact, a way of subverting the powerful voice art can be in global discussions about politics, economics, society, culture, religion and international relations. ~ Aman Mojadidi

What is ... disturbing to me is that many of these pro-Israeli lawmakers sit on the House International Relations Committee despite the obvious conflict of interest that their emotional attachments to Israel cause ... The Israeli occupation of all territories must end, including Congress. ~ Cynthia McKinney

When diplomacy ends, War begins. ~ Adolf Hitler

Sometimes war may become the only resort available, but never try to justify it, by saying that it's the right thing to do, because war is never the right thing to do, no matter how right you feel. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die - you don't know whose children are going to scream and burn - how many hearts will be broken - how many lives shattered - how much blood will spill until everybody does what they are always gonna have to do from the very beginning - sit down, talk and try to understand each other beyond the petty little differences born from instinctual tribalism. ~ Abhijit Naskar

We have to examine the extent to which we export poverty to other societies. When we decide that we will import products from China that are produced by people earning less than a dollar an hour, and grant their country most-favored-nation status (political contributions notwithstanding), we are deciding to make American workers who must earn the minimum wage compete with them. I am not suggesting that we close the doors to China or to Mexico, but I am suggesting that we look very carefully at the web of international relationships that we are creating. At the very minimum, we should understand that we have two choices in our country: we can raise world living standards by exporting those standards, or we can lower living standards- not only the world's but also our own- by deciding that it is acceptable for the products of exploited labor to enter this country. ~ Julianne Malveaux

You have to be smart .

The Easy day are over. ~ Versatile Institute

The question shouldn't be what we ought to do, but what we can do. ~ Rory Stewart

By the end of the third decade of this century, all of American life - politics, international relations, our homes, our jobs, our industries, the kind of cars we drive - will be forever transformed by the climate and energy challenge. ~ Joseph J. Romm

To build a theory of international relations on accidents of geography and history is dangerous. ~ Kenneth Waltz

Obama met with the president of China, Xi Jinping, in a sterile hotel conference room, untouched cups of cooling tea and ice water before us. There was a long review of all the progress made over the last several years. Xi assured Obama, unprompted, that he would implement the Paris climate agreement even if Trump decided to pull out. "That's very wise of you," Obama replied. "I think you'll continue to see an investment in Paris in the United States, at least from states, cities, and the private sector." We were only two years removed from the time when Obama had flown to Beijing and secured an agreement to act in concert with China to combat climate change, the step that made the Paris agreement possible in the first place. Now China would lead that effort going forward.
Toward the end of the meeting, Xi asked about Trump. Again, Obama suggested that the Chinese wait and see what the new administration decided to do in office, but he noted that the president-elect had tapped into real concerns among Americans about "the fairness of our economic relationship with China. Xi is a big man who moves slowly and deliberately, as if he wants people to notice his every motion.

Sitting across the table from Obama, he pushed aside the binder of talking points that usually shape the words of a Chinese leader. We prefer to have a good relationship with the United States, he said, folding his hands in front of him. That is good for the world. But every action will have a ~ Ben Rhodes

New Zealand's nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might. ~ David Lange

Among all the methods, non-violence is most successful, and I strongly believe that only non-violence can set the true mood of peace and harmony among the nuclear nations. Our experiments with non-violence should be more wide, more engaging and more humble. ~ Amit Ray

I think it is a very natural tendency for the nations to increase their influence in the international space, as they pursue their international relations with different countries. ~ Narendra Modi

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues. ~ Alfred North Whitehead

Sport allows us to engage in dialogue and to build bridges, and it may even have the capacity to reshape international relations. The Olympic Games embody perfectly this universal mission. ~ Richard Attias

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest ... The Nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to war the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times, it makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of Nations has been the victim. ~ George Washington

Who can we trust with a monopoly of the planet killer weapons and unlimited powers of inspection and arrest? Why, a country big and modern enough to make peace-keeping a major industry; but not big enough to conquer anyone else or force its will on anyone without the support of a majority of nations; and reasonably well thought of by everyone. In short, Sweden. ~ Poul Anderson

The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite. ~ Vladimir Zhirinovsky

A single strand appeared to unite these conflicts, and that was the advancement of a small coterie's concept of American interests in the guise of the fight against terrorism... I recognized that if this was to be the single most important priority of our species, then the lives of those of us who lived in lands in which such killers also lived had no meaning except as collateral damage. ~ Mohsin Hamid

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations. ~ Mohamed ElBaradei

For 30 years I've been schooled in everything from government, and economics, to medicine and international relations. But don't be impressed. Someone once said being a general assignment reporter simply means you are equally ignorant about most everything. In other words, I know a little about a lot. ~ Lester Holt

No peace can be lasting unless the humans become wise enough to need no borders, which can happen only if you all stop feeling threatened by your own kind and start fostering a sense of genuine trust for each other. I would rather be killed by you, the human, my own kind, than be killed by a disease. There is bliss in being killed by your own people. Once you recognize this simple revelation in your heart, then only can there be peace in the world. This doesn't mean that you are giving permission to your fellow human to kill you for no reason, rather you are showing in practice the absurd extent of your trust upon that person. Then it becomes extremely hard for the other person to see you as an enemy. ~ Abhijit Naskar

International peace negotiations need more value creation than value claiming. The more we create value for peace and development, the easier it is going to be to claim value for nuclear weapons free world. ~ Amit Ray

How can you cry for others' struggles when you are facilitating mayhem in your own land? ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

It is never right for any individual or government to do any vast evil as a means to some hypothetical good. ~ Leonard Woolf

Universality of the UN is a worthwhile thing in its own self because it means that every country belongs, feels it has a stake, and participates, rather than going away and finding other methods of conducting international relations. ~ Shashi Tharoor

It is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. ~ Lord Paulmerston

The more dubious and uncertain an instrument violence has become in international relations, the more it has gained in reputation and appeal in domestic affairs, specifically in the matter of revolution. ~ Hannah Arendt

Ideally, the ISS program will just be one more incremental step on an expanding, incredible journal of exploration and understanding, taking us higher and farther. ~ Ron Garan

If you cloned JFK and Abraham Lincoln and made them president it wouldn't matter. Our system is just too corrupt and too broken. I think that science is corrupt and broken. I think health and nutrition. I think the economic systems, the international relations, the environment, everything, the engines of everything are broken. ~ Rainn Wilson

China always urges that no use or threat of sanctions should be allowed in international relations. ~ Li Zhaoxing

Obama was the most powerful man in the world, but that didn't mean he could control the forces at play in the Middle East. There was no Nelson Mandela who could lead a country to absolution for its sins and ours. Extremist forces were exploiting the Arab Spring. Reactionary forces - with deep reservoirs of political support in the United States - were intent on clinging to power. Bashar al-Assad was going to fight to the death, backed by his Russian and Iranian sponsors. Factions were going to fight it out in the streets of Libya. The Saudis and Emiratis were going to stamp out political dissent in Egypt before it could come to their kingdoms. A Likud prime minister was going to mouth words about peace while building settlements that made peace impossible. Meanwhile, innocent people were going to suffer, some of them were going to be killed, and there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it. Obama had reached that conclusion before I had. History had opened up a doorway in 2011 that, by the middle of 2013, had been slammed shut. There would be more war, more conflict, and more suffering, until - someday - old men would make peace. ~ Ben Rhodes

In the realm of international relations, the dilemma with 'State Morality' is that the rich countries choose to be immoral to maintain their dominance, whereas the poor countries can't afford to be moral in order to just survive. ~ Mamur Mustapha

Such highly qualitative leadership is demanded especially in the realm of the fostering of right international relations. Here the demand is simply irresistible. ~ John Raleigh Mott

Government planning not only fails; it tends to produce outcomes that are the opposite of what its proponents say that they favor. The only stable and productive social system is one that embraces human liberty in its totality, and defends the market economy, private property, sound money, and peaceful international relations, while opposing government intervention as economically and socially destructive. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell

Line of control should be a garden, a place of art and cultural festival. ~ Amit Ray

At a purely practical level, history is important because it provides the basic skills needed for students to go further in sociology, politics, international relations and economics. History is also an ideal discipline for almost all careers in the law, the civil service and the private sector. ~ Antony Beevor

I did several types of work about several investigations of application of game theory to international relations. ~ Reinhard Selten

Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values. ~ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs. ~ Pope John Paul II

We hear war called murder. It is not; it is suicide. ~ Ramsay MacDonald

The challenge to which these two groups responded was the interdependence of human kind, North and South, Rich and Pool, Industrialised and Rural, in the aftermath of the Second World War. To the United World College group it called for the establishment of a new kind of school where young people of all nations and backgrounds could live and learn together at the most formative period of their adolescence and so form those ties of friendship and understanding that would last them through their lives ~ Prince Charles HRH The Prince Of Wales

The most fundamental problem is not that we don't have a system to run but those with knowledge are cynically manipulating the system for petty personal desires. ~ Nilantha Ilangamuwa

Oh my God, I thought you were getting into international relations or something."
"I mean, technically - "
"If you finish that sentence, I'm gonna spend tonight in jail. ~ Casey McQuiston

[Recep Tayyip] Erdogan is an adherent of realpolitik. He knows that international relations are not built on the strength of unilateral demands, but on solutions that are in everybody's best interest. ~ Martin Schulz

I never planned on being an actress, just as I never planned on being a model. I went to law and international-relations school. It wasn't my direction. It kind of happened to me. And because it wasn't my dream when I started, I wasn't starstruck. ~ Gal Gadot

Trade is the oldest and most important economic nexus among nations. Indeed, trade along with war ha been central to the evolution of international relations. ~ Robert Gilpin

The term POTUS used to be viewed around the world with a degree of respect. Unfortunately the current US president has junked any last remnant of that image. Instead he seems only too happy to trash the environment; to scrap age old alliances promoting peace and prosperity; to discard internationally binding treaties; to toss aside like garbage hard won civil liberties. Maybe DETRITUS is a more fitting acronym for the current occupant of the White House - 'Deranged egotistical tyrant ruining & isolating the U.S. ~ Alex Morritt

Mr. Breschnev says we will bury you, I don't subscribe to that point of view. It seems like such an ignorant thing to do, if the Russians love their children, too. ~ Sting

Therefore, every country has to understand that fighting against international terrorism is not for the sake of the United States, but for the sake of themselves, and, to a larger extent, in the name of stability of international relations. ~ Omar Bongo

Far too many people - many of them academics, many politicians - continue to jabber about a supposed 'special relationship' between our two countries.
I used to think that no such thing existed. Recently, I have become convinced that it does, and that it is in fact a Specially Bad Relationship. ~ Peter Hitchens

Since Nigeria has refused to fully embrace the present reality as it is, that is; the importance of science and technology, the redundancy of religion, the need for pragmatic international relations, economic reforms, support of entrepreneurship spirit, etc., but rather, has continued to accept the world the way it has choose to see it, that is; the supremacy of supernatural belief over human intelligence, the sacredness of tribalism, the abuse of democratic tenets, inability to appreciate scientific truth, its desire to be lifelong importer of finished products, etc., all of which have become our reality, then one would imagine how soon we can attain self-reliance. ~ Tony Osborg

Even a little practical working familiarity with cattle goes a long way in Africa, but how many international relations studies include this? ~ T.K. Naliaka

History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

Over the past year, several cases of human rights abuses, specifically sexual exploitation and abuse, by individuals involved in U.N. peacekeeping operations have raised the suspicions of many Members of Congress and members of the International Relations Committee. ~ Michael McCaul

The world is now too small for anything but brotherhood. ~ A. Powell Davies