Stephen Kinzer Quotes

The main challenge for American foreign policy in many places is not to influence relations between states but rather to influence events within states.

Such recognition is not necessary in order to enable the United States to intervene and pacify the Island.

No world power has ever tried to manage affair in this particular circumstance: The cycle of News, the cycle of crises, the complexity of grievances in increasing numbers of failed and failing states.

There is no such thing as gratitude in international politics.

A new multipolar world has brought more uncertainty into international affairs.

I think there are real dangers to escalating military conflict with ISIS, and we need to be aware of them. But at the same time, you have to understand, you know, that this whole thing started with Bashar al-Assad and how he is the one who continued to escalate against the people of Syria who were trying to get democratic reform.

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

The U.S. has intervened more often in more countries farther from its own shores than has any power in modern history.

In international relations, in foreign policy, a great deal has to do with historical circumstances, a great deal has to do with the sense and perception of people.

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

Where in the Constitution does it say that because we don't like a foreign country's leader, we should go in and topple the dictator?

There is very little hope that the United States or anyone else can do much to stabilize Iraq, Libya, Syria or Egypt. Stabilizing Iran, and bringing it back into the family of nations, is much more possible. That would be a 'win' for both sides.

Russia would not support anything which would be actually imposed on Syrians.

Journalists are in the same madly rocking boat as diplomats and statesmen. Like them, when the Cold War ended, they looked for a new world order and found a new world disorder. If making and conducting foreign policy in today's turbulent environment is difficult, so is practicing journalism.

I think if you're going to master policy, especially world affairs, you've got to know history.

I'm concerned with China growing at double or triple the rate of the West, that there will be tensions. One needs to do something to start addressing misunderstandings and frustration.

Since the end of the Cold War, hegemonism has become increasingly unpopular.

Great powers reserve the right to police bad actors in their neighborhoods.

I'm not a wide-eyed imperialist who wants to see Americans manning outposts all over the world. Not outposts to freedom in the cold war cliche, but islands of stability and seas of ethnic strife. That is not what anyone should feel comfortable seeing Americans doing.

I don't think we would have had to be an occupying power if we had done the right thing in 1991.

Today's global landscape is increasingly interconnected. China and the Middle East play critical roles towards international peace and security.

Does anyone believe that Kofi Annan scares Bashar Assad?

I'm tired of the U.S. getting involved in every country's individual disputes.

Looking back over my more than a half century in intelligence, I have not experienced a time when we've been beset by more crises and threats around the globe.

The United Nations Security Council is there to protect the interest of the Americans and the British.