American Foreign Policy Quotes

Americans are the great Satan, the wounded snake.

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.

As long as Americans believe that their country has vital interests everywhere on earth, they will behave the same.

The American financial and military commitment really only kicks in with Korea. Not that Korea was the real game for the Americans; their real fear was that this was just the prelude to a second Korea in Germany. We now know from the Soviet archives that the last thing Stalin was going to do was start a war in Central Europe. The Americans didn't know that, and it was the fear that he might which transformed NATO from a sort of shell game into a real military alliance. That total commitment basically transformed the Marshal Plan into military aid.

The state of Israel seems to owe its very existence to the American Jewish vote, while at the same time consigning the non-religious to political oblivion.

Ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton.

We do have to take the long-term view. And long term, the question to ask ourselves is whether America should attack others pre-emptively, whether she should embroil herself in wars far away from our soil, and try to bring democracy by force to the rest of the world.

American foreign policy towards Egypt, even before the Arab Spring, was tentative. When the Muslim Brotherhood moved against the NGOs—many of whom were American, President Obama, instead of raising Hell, raised questions.

We view Egypt as a good friend of America. We are in constant touch with them. We provide them economic and military assistance as part of our relationship.

The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.

Despite my great disappointment in American foreign policy, I am very proud of the American tradition of wild land conservation. It is the best tradition and example of land conservation in the world. It goes back a long way.

When America rejected the League, she had deliberately chosen to rest solely upon treaties with the sanction of public opinion alone…

The question of when you intervene is probably the toughest question of American foreign policy.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

With regards to American foreign policy all across the globe, it is important for us to be operating from positions of strength, and not to just concede that.

We Americans know - although others appear to forget - the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.

Protectionism is the ally of isolationism, and isolationism is the Dracula of American foreign policy.

The United States never lost a war or won a conference.

The Constitution provided an invitation to the President and Congress to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.

The complete lack of governance in huge swaths of the Middle East - that is the project of the American establishment.

From the very beginning, the American republic has never shrunk from foreign wars …. There has scarcely been a year since its founding that American soldiers haven’t been overseas … American foreign policy largely consists of doctrines about when and where to intervene in other people’s countries.

American foreign policy needs to be driven by what will get results and what is legal, not by what satisfies our primal instincts of revenge.

I've never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country.

America is a large friendly dog in a small room. Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair.

American foreign policy, for all its shortcomings, has underpinned political stability around the world.