The American foreign policy trauma of the sixties and seventies was caused by applying valid principles to unsuitable conditions.
Interpretation
Mistakes in foreign policy occur when sound principles are applied in the wrong context.
Henry A. Kissinger highlights that the difficulties faced by American foreign policy during the 1960s and 1970s stemmed from a mismatch between the application of rational principles and the complex, often unsuitable political realities of the time. This suggests that a one-size-fits-all approach to foreign relations can lead to significant errors and unintended consequences.
In practice
This quote can be used in a political science discussion to illustrate the pitfalls of foreign policy decisions.
Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed, or aspirations that weren’t realized. So, as a historian, one has to live with a sense of the inevitability of tragedy.
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.
It was a Greek tragedy. Nixon was fulfilling his own nature. Once it started it could not end otherwise.
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
If peace is equated simply with the absence of war, it can become abject pacifism that turns the world over to the most ruthless.
What political leaders decide, intelligence services tend to seek to justify.
Of course the Republicans have long wanted to privatize Social Security and destroy it. But Social Security has been the most important and valuable social program in the history of the United States.
There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black President.
I may find Saddam Hussein's regime abhorrent - any normal person would - but the survival of it is in his hands.
Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them - that our elected representatives aren't looking out for the interests of most Americans.
American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights.
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