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Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.

Henry Kissinger

Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Animal Man Policy Stupidity
The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Oppression
Americans have a tendency to believe that when there’s a problem there must be a solution.
HENRY KISSINGER

Believe Problem
Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There is too much fraternizing with the enemy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Enemy Win
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
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Can governmental orders be invented from scratch by intelligent thinkers, or is the range of choice limited by underlying organic and cultural realities (the Burkean view)?
HENRY KISSINGER

Choice Government Intelligence Limitation Thinking
When statesmen want to gain time, they offer to talk.
HENRY KISSINGER

Man Talk Time
In short, the end justifies the means.
HENRY KISSINGER

End Justice
Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.
HENRY KISSINGER

Oppression Rule
Order always requires a subtle balance of restraint, force, and legitimacy.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Rule
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God
HENRY KISSINGER

Blessing Destiny Eyes God Leadership People Play
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.
HENRY KISSINGER

Politics Reputation
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
Later I learned to improve my forecasting—if necessary by asking the visitor in advance what subjects he intended to raise with Nixon.
HENRY KISSINGER

Learning Myself Necessary
If history teaches anything it is that there can be no peace without equilibrium and no justice without restraint.
HENRY KISSINGER

History Justice Peace Teaching

Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.

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Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial.

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