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

Henry Kissinger

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

Believe Problem
Power without legitimacy tempts tests of strength; legitimacy without power tempts empty posturing.
HENRY KISSINGER

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

Animal Man Policy Stupidity
Covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
HENRY KISSINGER

Action Difference
The Art of War articulates a doctrine less of territorial conquest than of psychological dominance; it was the way the North Vietnamese fought America.
HENRY KISSINGER

Art Fight War
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
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
For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux.
HENRY KISSINGER

Philosophy Power Science
Intellectuals analyze the operations of international systems; statesmen build them.
HENRY KISSINGER

Intellectual Politics
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
Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbor states with spies.
HENRY KISSINGER

Nation Rule Trust
History knows no resting places and no plateaus
HENRY KISSINGER

History Nature Place
Since Peter the Great, Russia had been expanding at the rate of one Belgium per year.
HENRY KISSINGER

Greatness Growth War
Yet freedom cannot be secured or sustained without a framework of order to keep the peace.
HENRY KISSINGER

Freedom Peace Rule Secure
The issues are too important to be left for the voters.
HENRY KISSINGER

Important Issue Vote

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

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

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Popular Authors

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