Global Intervention Quotes

Americans must not be given the impression that they have a duty to go to war against every evil leader in the world and against every transgression of the international order.

Countries can’t stand by as a genocide takes place in another country.

We were willing to support almost any scoundrel almost anywhere around the globe provided he was willing to wave an anti-Communist banner.

Provision must be made for the extension of speedy and effective assistance when any African State is threatened with military aggression. We cannot rely solely on international morality.

Americans might not want to intervene in the outside world, but the outside world will still want to intervene in America.

Both Republicans and Democrats want to use our children as cannon fodder in order to police the world.

The [next] priority for change the first element of a new politics for the United States is in our policy toward the world. Too much and for too long, we have acted as if our great military might and wealth could bring about an American solution to every world problem.

Liberals like using government to solve problems in OUR country and conservatives are using our government to solve problems in OTHER countries.

The only reason I send a single young man or woman in uniform anywhere in the world is because I think it's necessary to keep us safe.

It could well be argued that the continuing rights abuses of the present Iraqi regime, if it is allowed to survive, will prove most distressing. This is beyond any doubt. But the West has been required to witness terrible scenes in China, Russia, Vietnam, East Timor, Cambodia, and many other parts of the world. It is simply not possible for the United States to impose humanity on a worldwide scale unless it is prepared to enter into permanent global war.

I see them as messianic advocates of American power from one end of the globe, much as the Jacobins in France were messianic advocates of the French Revolution. I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process.

We [Americans] move about the world arrogantly, calling wars when we want, overthrowing governments when we want. There is a price to be paid for it -- look at 9/11. [That] wasn't just bin Laden. Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.

Islam is one of the fastest-growing faiths within America, and America needs to show that we're not anti-Islam. We are for, for people being free and having opportunity everywhere, that... We did that in Bosnia, we did that in Kosovo, we did that in numerous other places in the world.

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Unlike the Vietnam boat people or Cuban refugees after Castro came to power, the U.S. has no moral responsibility for the chaos in Syria. In fact, just the opposite is the case.

Unrestrained zeal to make the world better could make it worse. Promoting democracy must be undertaken with humility, care, and wisdom.

America is the world's policeman, all right -- a big, dumb, mick flatfoot in the middle of the one thing cops dread most, a "domestic disturbance.

Nobody's interests are served by what's happening in Syria today. It's a catastrophe. It's the worst human catastrophe since World War II. And, as I said just now, it represents a failure of the entire international community to come to grips with solving it.

We have a history when things are really horrible of wading in when no one else will.

Americans, apparently, either do nothing about the world's problems, in which case they are ignorant and isolationist, selfish and gutless, or they try to do something about the world's problems, in which case they are arrogant and naive, greedy and bullying.

There is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their collapse. There is nobody we can't take down. The question is, what do you do with the power?

The United States should not have to intervene in every single problem around the world. The voters of this country are reacting in a very big, broad way to Mr. Trump. They are frustrated by lousy decisions made by both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Look at the mess we have.

America does not need to continue to have regime change throughout the world, nation-building.

Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan). In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO. It is unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt.

Foreign policy must be about priorities. The United States cannot do everything everywhere.