Alan Furst Quotes

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

The origins of the principle of the balance of power are lost in the mists of history.

Study history. Study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft.

In dealing with the China problem, the British and American side, which had particularly strong interests in China, should have based its judgments about the origins of the problem on direct observation of the actual circumstances at the time.

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.

When I'm working on historical books, I'm much more organized. I usually read about 100 books to get the depth of knowledge I need.

History has shown that the life, borders and forms of states are changeable as created not only on the territorial and ethnic, but also economic, political, military and other suchlike grounds

In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.

Grand strategies are not nearly so important as grand strategists like to think, because countries tend to be judged by their actions, not on their words…. History shows that grand strategies do not alter the trajectory of great power politics all that much.

I've worked for four presidents, and I've concluded that almost nothing is inevitable. History is to a significant extent the result of the interaction of personalities and ideas. And so I don't believe war between the U.S. and China is in any way inevitable, and it's well within the province of diplomacy and statecraft to avoid it.

The most important thing I learned as a foreign correspondent in about 80 countries is that it takes a very shallow knowledge of history to think that there are solutions to most problems.

Russians can give you arms but only the United States can give you a solution.

Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda. Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past.

Germany, because of the fact and the perception of a special relationship with Russia, is the only one who can influence Russian debate. Russians also believe that Germans understand them best because they've been through a big war and know what humiliation means.

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

I have spent time discussing the American political system and current events in Taiwan with the junior diplomats, and they have repeatedly expressed their country's desire to avoid confrontation with China.

Foreign interventions always end badly.

There is not much danger of the smaller nations if the big nations will behave.

American presence is, you know, the major cause of balance of power and the stability in this region.

What Iran wants and what North Korea wants is respect.

For me, geopolitical issues are becoming more important, because how can you understand economy if you don't understand geopolitics? People think economists just deal with spreadsheets and charts. That's a narrow-minded caricature.

The history of nations shows that words are not always immediately followed by action.

I have a background and an understanding of what's happened in the Middle East that a lot of people don't have, because there's been no interest.

I do enjoy history. That's one of the things that I love about acting is you get a chance to really dive into history and develop a real personal opinion about it.

One of the things the United States does well is building coalitions. What the U.S. knows is that if you don't have a coalition with you, you will have a coalition against you. I don't want to see China and Russia on the side of Iran more strongly than they are.