Madeleine Albright Quotes
Unless you’re prepared to use force, it’s very difficult to deal with a person who understands only force.
Madeleine Albright, U. S. Secretary of State (Democrat), U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations (Democrat), Statement regarding the Yugoslavia War, Quoted on PBS Frontline, February 29, 2000
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
For various historical reasons the United States and Iran at that time had no diplomatic relations and there was no easy way for the countries to negotiate their differences. The United States public policy was that Iran would not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon which was backed up by severe economic sanctions and the threat of military force. Kucinich wanted face to face negotiations and discussions before we resorted to military action.
In this case, he was referring to the situation with the Barbary Pirates who had an incredible extortion racket going in the Mediterranean. If nations would pay them an annual sum each year, they would not attack and seize merchant ships of that country and sell the ships and goods while holding the sailors for ransom. Jefferson favored and authorized war—a naval attack which for many reasons the European nations had not done (they just paid the tribute). Then a peace treaty was finally signed—the first American Treaty.
The highest court in New York.
This appears to be the first American utterance of a longstanding doctrine of foreign policy.
While this was a common attitude for years before, the horrors of World War II produced a general revulsion to war and an awareness that war between two nations spills over to other states in the region and in an era of globalization, effects countries in other parts of the world. So there has been a tendency to use diplomacy endlessly, even after "things have gone too far". Historically, when things reached that point, the parties did fight it out, and when one was weakened sufficiently, negotiations and diplomacy could then be fruitful.
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright is an American politician and diplomat who served as the first female United States Secretary of State in U.S. history from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton.
