A Quote by George F. Kennan
The United States cannot reshape other countries in its own image and that, with a few exceptions, its efforts to police the world are neither in its interests nor within the scope of its resources. This whole tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.
Related Quotes
But thanks to the efforts, the initiative of the United States and of the several countries from the world, from Europe, including Turkey, it ended within a few weeks.
On what basis should our policy rest? It should rest on our own strength, and that means regeneration through one's own efforts. We are not alone; all the countries and people in the world opposed to imperialism are our friends. Nevertheless, we stress regeneration through our own efforts. Relying on the forces we ourselves organize, we can defeat all Chinese and foreign reactionaries.
In the United States, man does not feel that he has been torn from the center of creation and suspended between hostile forces. He has built his own world, and it is built in his own image: it is his mirror. But now he cannot recognize himself in his inhuman objects, nor in his fellows.
In its exterior relations - abroad - this government is the sole and exclusive representative of the united majesty, sovereignty, and power of the States, constituting this great and glorious Union. To the rest of the world, we are one. Neither State nor State government is known beyond our borders. Within, it is different.
The main implication is a remapping of the world in line with American policy and American interests. Natural resources are limited, and the United States wants to make sure that its own population is kept supplied. The principle effect of this will be for the United States to control large parts of the oil which the world possesses.
There has been sort of, if you will, a moral interventionism on the part of the United States trying to reshape countries in our own image. Now, we had to go into Afghanistan. We didn't have to go into Iraq. But the idea that you could create a Vermont in the Middle East like that was naive from the beginning.
The same image that I have of all the countries where I am supposed to go: it's far, it's different, it will be necessarily complicated ... It's another part of the world for me coming [from] the United States.
We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we cannot impose our will upon the other 94 percent of mankind, that we cannot right every wrong or reverse every adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.
Foreign aid is neither a failure nor a panacea. It is, instead, an important tool of American policy that can serve the interests of the United States and the world if wisely administered.
It's a great thing that the United States has given the rest of the world - no other country has given such great popular music to the Far East and Europe. When I play those great countries, a lot of times, the audience starts singing the songs with me. They know them. They love them.
The world is ruled by neither justice nor morality; crime is not punished nor virtue rewarded, one is forgotten as quickly as the other. The world is ruled by power and power is obtained with money. To work is senseless, because money cannot be obtained through work, but through exploitation of others. And if we cannot exploit as much as we wish, at least let us work as little as we can. Moral duty? We believe neither in the morality of man nor in the morality of systems. [p. 168]
Everyone in the world is impacted by the United States' Big Brother attitude toward the world. We need countries to say no to the United States. The United States is the dominant power in the universe, with its eavesdropping abilities, cyber abilities. And the world is in danger with our tyranny.
The developed world should neither shelter nor militarily destabilize authoritarian regimes unless those regimes represent an imminent threat to the national security of other states. Developed states should instead work to create the conditions most favorable for a closed regime's safe passage through the least stable segment of the J curve however and whenever the slide toward instability comes. And developed states should minimize the risk these states pose the rest of the world as their transition toward modernity begins.
Hip-hop went through different stages, from the beginning in the streets of the Bronx, to the whole Tri-State area and then to the rest of the United States and the rest of the world.
Relations between the United States and other countries, and our role as a global leader, are advanced by our willingness to help other countries in need. Foreign aid is essential to protecting U.S. interests around the world, and it is also a moral responsibility of the wealthiest, most powerful nation.
The United States will continue to be number one, and I do not see any country or group of countries taking the United States' place in providing global public goods that underpin security and prosperity. The United States functions as the world's de facto government.
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