Pierre Laval Quotes

No nation has friends only interests.

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

For four hundred years the foreign policy of England has to oppose the strongest, most aggressive, most dominating Power on the Continent …

President Nixon was a pragmatic strategist. He would engage, not contain, China, but he would also quietly set pieces into place for a fallback position should China not play according to the rules as a good global citizen.

Someone has said that nations have interests, they don't have friends, and you see that over and over in U.S. policy.

… realpolitik

Clearly, for France in her present position, intelligent activity consists of practicing a policy of entente with Germany in order to survive

There will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, balances of power ...

The United States may have to abandon its policy of avoiding entangling alliances.

The management of a balance of power is a permanent undertaking, not an exertion that has a foreseeable end.

Unilateralism will lead to the decline of American Power.

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests

Foreign policy should be strategic, not tactical.

I am not fond of the Germans by any means but at the present time it is more advantageous to use them than to challenge them. An independent Poland is very dangerous to Soviet Russia: it is an evil which, however, at the present time has also its redeeming features; for while it exists, we may safely count on Germany, because the Germans hate Poland and will at any time make common cause with us in order to strangle Poland. ..

The United States has become geopolitically hobbled seemingly interested in grand strategic initiatives or transformative diplomacy, as its attention constantly dances from one crisis to another.

Even allies don’t share every single interest that you have. That’s a law of nature in the international system. They will tell you most of what you need to know but there may be some things that they don’t tell you that you need to know in order to formulate your policy as wisely as you can.

Unless Germany has gone out of her mind, she will never attack Russia, England and France combined.

America is not really a strong enough state for us to regard it as an enemy of Russia.

...foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.

Realism in foreign policy means careful consideration of all aspects pertinent to the issue, before taking a decision. This is the only way you can move from where you are to someplace else.

It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy; power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy. The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States.

I thought that in general we in the United States were too optimistic in believing that the Soviets might alter what had been for a long time, as a matter of fact for centuries, fundamental Russian policies in respect to the rest of the world.

It's Russia some people would like to get rid of. They are still afraid of our nuclear deterrent. We have our own foreign policy whether they like it or not.

For the Kremlin, it is more feasible to preserve its great-power status in cooperation with the United States than in confrontation.

Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.