Diplomatic Strategy Quotes

Diplomacy … means the art of nearly deceiving all your friends, but not quite deceiving all your enemies

We are coming to realise that foreign operations in today's world call for a total diplomacy ... Ambassadors can no longer be content with wining and dining, reporting, analysing and cautiously predicting.

What we (U.S.) have done, is undertaken diplomacy through public assertions that tend to alienate everyone.

I can never look upon that proclamation in any other light (but I say this between ourselves) than as a temporary expedient to quiet the minds of the Indians.

Vacillation and inconsistency are as incompatible with successful diplomacy as they are with the national dignity.

The frenzy of nations is the statesmanship of fate.

Finally Germany's attack on Russia seemed to confirm that Russia was not shirking and was prepared to carry out a foreign policy with the risk of war with Germany.

Part of diplomacy, the hard work of diplomacy is trying to extract whatever concessions you can get, and giving something the other side wants. Of course you've got to try to make peace with, and work with those who are your adversaries, but you don't just rush in, open the door, and say, "Here I am. Let's talk and make a deal."

Only professional diplomats, inveterate idiots and women view diplomacy as a long-term substitute for war.

You [President Kennedy] have made some pretty strong statements about their being defensive and that we would take action against offensive weapons. I think that a blockade and political talk would be considered by a lot of our friends and neutrals as being a pretty weak response to this [the Cuban missile crisis]. And I'm sure a lot of our own citizens would feel that way too. In other words, you're in a pretty bad fix at the present time.

Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which states seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of arts, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war.

Diplomacy is tough, slogging, slow work—and hard work.

Diplomacy has more to do with (credible) threats than with sweet reason. And threats from America are a lot more credible, nowadays.

A nation with a goofy foreign policy needs a very serious policy of defense.

This is real. This is the real mad man theory. We have to be irrational and vindictive, so people don't know what we're up to. This is not [Donald] Trump and [Steve] Bannon, it's from the [Bill] Clinton era.

Dollar Diplomacy

You cannot have a diplomatic offensive without talking.

Margaret Thatcher and John Major knew that bluff and bravado doesn't work in Brussels.

Diplomacy, contrary to the current misconception, is not about making nice, exchanging happy talk, and offering concessions. It is the engine that converts raw energy and tangible power into meaningful political results. In other words, diplomacy is all about the intelligent use of power. Diplomacy is not an alternative to coercion and other forms of power; its effectiveness depends on their skillful use.

It's important that all around the globe that the United States is pursuing the most effective foreign policy possible.

In Syria, a progressive foreign policy would have shown military restraint while pumping up our ability to gain political leverage over Syria's benefactors and providing humanitarian funding to make sure that anybody that wanted to leave Syria could.

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.

There's too little sense in the State Department of why things happened.

The primary agency responsible for rallying U.S.-led interests around the world appears to be having the air sucked out of it. If you are Russia and you are looking at that right now, do you love what you are seeing?

The ministers and the Jacobins are making the king declare war tomorrow on Austria. The ministers are hoping that this move will frighten the Austrians and that within three weeks we will be negotiating (God forbid that this should happen). May we at last be avenged for all the outrages we have suffered from this country!