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For Roosevelt, if a nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect others to respect them. Inevitably,

Henry Kissinger

in international affairs a reputation for reliability is a more important asset than demonstrations of tactical cleverness.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Animal Man Policy Stupidity
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
HENRY KISSINGER

Absence Mindset
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
Corrupt politicians make the other ten percent look bad.
HENRY KISSINGER

Appearance Bad Politics
Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Freedom Peace Rule Secure
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe.
HENRY KISSINGER

Greatness History Leadership Peace Problem
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
Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
Poor old Germany. Too big for Europe, too small for the world
HENRY KISSINGER

Big World
To undertake a journey on a road never before traveled requires character and courage: character because the choice is not obvious; courage because the road will be lonely at first. And the statesman must then inspire his people to persist in the endeavor.
HENRY KISSINGER

Character Choice Courage Inspirational Journey Lonely People Road Travel
It has the added advantage of being true.
HENRY KISSINGER

True
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that if you bore people they think it’s their fault.
HENRY KISSINGER

Funny Mistake People Thinking Yourself
Policy is the art of the possible, the science of the relative.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Policy Possible Science
A country that demands moral perfection in its foreign policy will achieve neither perfection nor security
HENRY KISSINGER

Moral Perfection Policy Security
Postcolonial countries. All have sought to overcome the legacy of colonial.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Believe Problem
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
History knows no resting places and no plateaus
HENRY KISSINGER

History Nature Place
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
Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.
HENRY KISSINGER

Empty Power Strength
The issues are too important to be left for the voters.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Issue Vote
A more immediate issue concerns North Korea, to which Bismarck’s nineteenth-century aphorism surely applies: We live in a wondrous time, in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity.
HENRY KISSINGER

Growth Issue Live Strong Time Weakness Wonderful
It’s a pity both sides can’t lose (commenting on Iran-Iraq war, 1980 – 1988)
HENRY KISSINGER

Lose War

For Roosevelt, if a nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect others to respect them. Inevitably,

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For Roosevelt, if a nation was unable or unwilling to act to defend its own interests, it could not expect others to respect them. Inevitably,

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