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Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem

Henry Kissinger

What distinguishes Sun Tzu from Western writers on strategy is the emphasis on the psychological and political elements over the purely military.
HENRY KISSINGER

Strategy Writing
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Achievement End Peace Power
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
In his essay, ‘Perpetual Peace,’ the philosopher, Immanuel Kant, argued that perpetual peace would eventually come to the world in one of two ways, by human insight or by conflicts and catastrophes of a magnitude that left humanity no other choice. We are at such a juncture.
HENRY KISSINGER

Human Humanity Nature Peace Philosophy World
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.
HENRY KISSINGER

Goal Nation Reality
Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
HENRY KISSINGER

Action Difference
The Soviet Union would never be bound by agreements, Deng warned; it understood only the language of countervailing force.
HENRY KISSINGER

Force Language Understand
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
HENRY KISSINGER

Legal Politics Time
Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem.
HENRY KISSINGER

Difficult Problem Success
If Chinese exceptionalism represented the claims of a universal empire, Japanese exceptionalism sprang from the insecurities of an island nation borrowing heavily from its neighbor, but fearful of being dominated by it.
HENRY KISSINGER

Fear Insecurity Nation Represent
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
HENRY KISSINGER

Knowledge Life Live Lost Philosophy Wisdom
Americans hold that every problem has a solution; Chinese think that each solution is an admission ticket to a new set of problems.
HENRY KISSINGER

Perspective Problem Thinking
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

Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem

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Every victory is only the price of admission to a more difficult problem

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