Colin Powell Quotes

Cooperation requires a certain degree of trust between states. The threshold of trust required for cooperation depends on a set of variables including a state's relative power and costs of conflict…. conflict between trustworthy states is possible, when we see conflict it is a sign that one or both of the states are likely to be untrustworthy.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

You should never take military intervention off the table. When you do so, you give an out to a rogue nation or rogue actors.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

All foreign policy is the intervention of one nation's domestic politics into another nation's domestic politics.

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

Let the natural process of war among nations smother the weak.

Whenever peace—conceived as the avoidance of war—has been the primary objective of a power or group of powers, the international system has been at the mercy of the most ruthless member of the international community.

The diplomatic relations upon which our present system of international comity is based are being encountered by new forces and combinations which are fast rendering them impotent and antiquated

[Sanctions] make us feel like a player in foreign policy where our powers tend to be more limited …. We’re less patient with diplomacy.

Politics is pacific war.

It’s not only time to It is time not to take force off the table… It is time to put force on the table and use it

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.

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.

All wars come to an end, at least temporarily. But the authority acquired by the state hangs on; political power never abdicates.

First, we could have defied both of them and could have gone to war against both of these nations for this violation of international law and interference with our neutral rights.

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

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

Mr. Obama's approach to engagement to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't - but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

And this system sorted out the Chechen war in just 20 days. This way, I used the President's power, he didn't use me. It wasn't hard for me to leave - it isn't my scene. I have nothing to do there.

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

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.