Michael Mandelbaum Quotes
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One thing worse than an America that is too strong, the world will learn, is an America that is too weak.
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After all, the past is our only real guide to the future, and historical analogies are instruments for distilling and organizing the past and converting it to a map by which we can navigate.
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Certainly, protecting oppressed people, stopping ethnic conflict and promoting responsible governance are worthy goals. But none is as important for American security and prosperity as keeping the peace in the Middle East, Europe and East Asia.
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While analogies are useful, however, they can also be misleading. They smuggle in assumptions that can be wrong.
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Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.
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All policy is a matter of gains and losses, upsides and downsides.
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Great wars can only be fought by great powers.
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The United States doesn't do what it does in the world for altruistic reasons. Nobody set out to be the world's government.
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The American empire will not disappear... because America does not have an empire.
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The government can give citizens opportunity and it's their responsibility to take advantage of it.
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People do not change when you tell them they should; they change when they tell themselves they must.
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The real threat to world stability is not too much American power. It is too little American power.