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The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.

Henry Kissinger

In the end, peace can be achieved only by hegemony or by balance of power.
HENRY KISSINGER

Achievement End Peace Power
A country whose security depends on producing a genius in each generation sets itself a task no society has ever met.
HENRY KISSINGER

Genius Security
It is not often that nations learn from the past, even rarer that they draw the correct conclusions from it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Learning Nation Past
It is one of history’s ironies that Communism, advertised as a classless society, tended to breed a privileged class of feudal proportions.
HENRY KISSINGER

Class History Oneself
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
order without freedom, even if sustained by momentary exaltation, eventually creates its own counterpoise; yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Creation Freedom Peace Rule
Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Policy Possible Science
I am being frank about myself in this book. I tell of my first mistake on page 850.
HENRY KISSINGER

Book Mistake Myself
Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict.
HENRY KISSINGER

Avoidance Development Direction Thinking Victory
The mindset for walking lonely political paths may not be self-evident to those who seek confirmation by hundreds, sometimes thousands of friends on Facebook.
HENRY KISSINGER

Evidence Friendship Lonely Mindset Path Walk
The reason that university politics is so vicious is because stakes are so small
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reason
The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
HENRY KISSINGER

Himself Leadership Nation People
Woe to the statesman whose arguments for entering a war are not as convincing at its end as they were at the beginning, Bismarck had cautioned.
HENRY KISSINGER

Argument Beginning End War
A Harvard study has shown that in fifteen cases in history where a rising and an established power interacted, ten ended in war.
HENRY KISSINGER

End Establishment History Power Rise War
Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Early Habit Important
America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests
HENRY KISSINGER

Enemy Friendship

The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.

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The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.

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Popular Authors

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