International Relations Quotes

Quotes tagged as "international-relations" Showing 31-60 of 349
“God is the Lord of human history and of the personal history of every member of His redeemed family.”
Margaret Clarkson, Grace Grows Best in Winter: Help for Those Who Must Suffer,

“Too often in the post-9/11 world, when the time has come to translate the moral, and essentially progressive, roots of foreign policy idealism into plans for American action, liberals have said, 'Duck.”
Richard Just, A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq

Joel C. Rosenberg
“The Possibility of somebody emerging as a nuclear power or events happening that surprise us on the nuclear stage is still a possibility. It always will be because there's an awful lot going behind the scenes. Our intelligence just has to get better on the score. -Peter Goss.”
Joel C. Rosenberg, Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson, and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World

“But it seems fairly evident that the operative Chinese strategic culture does not differ radically from key elements in the Western realpolitik tradition. Indeed, the Chinese case might be classified as a hard realpolitik sharing many of the same tenets about the nature of the enemy and the efficacy of violence as advocates of nuclear war-fighting on both sides in the Cold War, or late nineteenth century social Darwinian nationalists.7 While it does not represent the breadth or complexity of the realist tradition of statecraft, hard realpolitik is in essence one of the three Western traditions in international relations as identified by Martin Wight (the others being revolutionism and rationalism) (Wight 1991: 220-21). It is characterized by positions at the high end of the three dimensions that comprise the central paradigm of a strategic culture (see fig. 4.2)”
Alastair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History

Abhijit Naskar
“Disband the soldiers, empower the teachers, thus we plant the paradigm of peace.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“When faced by an international conflict, forget diplomacy, forget statecraft, forget strategies and policies and ask yourself, what would a human do in this situation, not a politician, not a bureaucrat, not a law enforcement official, but a human? The tree of diplomacy only grows thorns of war, not fruits of peace.”
Abhijit Naskar, Hurricane Humans: Give me accountability, I'll give you peace

Abhijit Naskar
“We don’t need to build a world with one superpower,
We gotta build a world where the world is superpower.
We don’t need a world rotting in diplomatic gutter,
Let’s build a world that has no geopolitical clutter.”
Abhijit Naskar, Iman Insaniyat, Mazhab Muhabbat: Pani, Agua, Water, It's All One

“Behaving like a fashion-forward model on a beach may be a novel approach to geopolitics, but I'm not sure if Vogue covers international relations.”
Dipti Dhakul, Quote: +/-

Abhijit Naskar
“I am too alive to be bound by ideology,
I am too human to be bound by border.
Too civilized to pledge flagly allegiance,
I am the ultimate geopolitical defector.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“Before being sworn into office, every head of state should spend a week in space, gathering some sense of the insurmountable gravity of our little blue home in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos. Perhaps then when they return to earth, they could actually work for the benefit of the people of earth, rather than wasting their term in office like yet another tribal savage obsessing over petty nationalistic agenda.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“How to Train Your Head of State (The Sonnet)

We shall achieve more by
blasting politicians into space,
than by blasting satellites
to other planets.

They'll leave earth as warmongers,
and return as peacemakers.
They'll leave earth as mindless apes,
and return as mindful humans.

In the middle of absolute vacuum,
mind grows fond of the warmth of home.
Fondness born of existential crisis,
never subsides even after you return
to your comfort zone.

When you are floating in space untethered,
each speck of earthland is equally priceless.
Then you'll realize the fallacy of borders -
Nation-nonsense will fade,
and earth will be your primary sense.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“We shall achieve more by blasting politicians into space, than by blasting satellites to other planets. They'll leave earth as warmongers, and return as peacemakers. They'll leave earth as mindless apes, and return as mindful humans.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Holden R. Snow
“There is no 'right side of history', there is only their side, and yours”
Holden R. Snow, Darker Skies Ahead

Abhijit Naskar
“World leeches masquerading as world leaders, would sell their mothers if the price is right.”
Abhijit Naskar, Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“You don't have to be a superpower to be a peacemaker.”
Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

Abhijit Naskar
“Politicians don't have race, politicians don't have religion, politicians don't have nationality. You may think, this is a good thing - well, in this case, it's not. You know why? Because their race is self-interest - their religion is self-interest - their nationality is self-interest. Politicians can be white, black, brown or martian - but once a moron, always a moron. Some monkeys are white, some monkeys are colored, but inside they are not white or colored - they are politicians - which means, they are all monkeys.

And the exception to this norm often comes from not so popular parts of the world - for example, South Africa. Which only proves that, you don't need to be a so-called geopolitical superpower to do what's right - you don't have to be a superpower to be a peacemaker. In fact in most cases, the so-called superpowers are the most morally bankrupt states in the world. Because guess what - governments don't exist to do the right thing, governments exist to do whatever keeps them in power. And the day the politics of self-interest comes to an end, there will be no longer any need for activists, humanitarians and reformers.”
Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

T.R. Fehrenbach
“Neither the Russians nor the Americans were the cleverest people, or the most experienced, in the world that followed 1945. The French were rather more civilized, the British more knowledgeable, and even the Italians at times more practical. But if you have the ships, the guns, and the money, too, cleverness or experience is not really necessary. Even a reasonable amount of blundering can be survived.”
T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

Ryan Gelpke
“The United Nations: A specter of bureaucratic behemoth looming over the fractured landscape of international relations.”
Ryan Gelpke

Ryan Gelpke
“This was my time at the MUN; not just a symbol of international cooperation, but a dark and mysterious nexus of conspiracy and intrigue. Indeed, a place where the forces of chaos and order collide in an endless struggle for dominance. But let's not kid ourselves, behind the facade of diplomatic protocols and bureaucratic banalities lurks a dark underbelly. A shadow world of secret meetings and covert operations, where the true rulers of the world pull the strings of fate like puppeteers in a grand cosmic theater. Here, in the labyrinthine corridors and dimly lit backrooms, the fate of nations is not decided by the will of the people, but by the whims of those who dwell in the shadows.”
Ryan Gelpke

Abhijit Naskar
“Armistice Sonnet

Ceasefire is a diplomatic gimmick,
They cease only to hit back harder.
Demilitarization is what we need,
We got no use for one more ceasefire.

Ceasefire only postpones war,
disarmament instills peace.
Armistice empowers armament,
demilitarization plants peace.

Tyrants don't call truce to allow aid,
but only to rearm themselves,
so they can call in more ammunition,
from their apely imperialist friends.

One more ceasefire we could do without,
World is wailing for the final ceasefire.
Disown every statesman who prides military,
Builders of military are merchants of murder.”
Abhijit Naskar, World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets

“I should like to caution you agains the perils of an exercise marked by an exchange of verbiage even in poetic language. But, in international relations, soft words butter no parsnips any more than harsh words break any bones. Ad-hocism and dilletantism are fraught with grave consequences.”
PN Haksar

Anne Applebaum
“The temptation of what is sometimes called realism—the belief that nations are solely motivated by a struggle for power, that they have eternal interests and permanent geopolitical orientations—is as strong as that of isolationism, and can be equally misleading, not least because it appeals to the indifferent. If nations never change, then of course we don’t need to exert the effort to make them change. If nations have permanent orientations, then all we need to do is discover what those are and get used to them. If nothing else, the Ukraine war showed us that nations are not pieces in a game of Risk. Their behavior can be altered by acts of cowardice or bravery, by wise leaders and cruel ones, and above all by good ideas and bad ones. Their interactions are not inevitable; their alliances and enmities are not permanent. There was no coalition to aid Ukraine until February 2022, and then there was. That coalition then made what had appeared to be the inevitable, rapid conquest of Ukraine impossible. By the same token, a different kind of Russian leader, with a different set of ideas, could now end the war quickly.”
Anne Applebaum, Autocracy, Inc.

“With the exception of the United States—from time to time—and perhaps one or two other small countries, it seems that every nation on earth, plays international politics strictly as a game of real politic. And this they do at everyone else’s expense. The question they ask is not, “Is it right?” The question they ask is, “Is it good for my country economically and politically?”
Today it is never in any other country’s perceived self-interest to take Israel’s side when the competing interests are a block of 21 states that run from the western tip of Africa to the middle of Asia, and the full 57 member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.”
David Naggar, The Case for a Larger Israel

“Globalisation and localisation are not antithetical but rather correlated processes: evolution of the concept of territoriality and the risk of levelling and sameness (of values, culture and so forth) make it necessary to reconsider and valorise local belonging and diversity.”
Giuseppe De Vergottini, Topographical Names and Protection of Linguistic Minorities

Buster Keaton
“It was not always possible to take that war seriously. In the first place I could not understand why we, the French, and the English were fighting the Germans and the Austrians. Being in vaudeville all of my life had made me international-minded. I had met too many kindly German performers—singers and acrobats and musicians—to believe they could be as evil as they were being portrayed in our newspapers. Having known Germans, Japanese jugglers, Chinese magicians, Italian tenors, Swiss yodelers and bell-ringers, Irish, Jewish, and Dutch comedians, British dancers, and whirling dervishes from India, I believed people from everywhere in the world were about the same. Not as individuals, of course, but taken as a group.”
Buster Keaton, My Wonderful World of Slapstick

“সাবেক মার্কিন রাষ্ট্রদূত বার্নিকাটের বক্তব্যটি ছিল স্পষ্ট। স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রীর সঙ্গে দেখা করার পর তিনই বলেছিলেন, 'বাংলাদেশে আইএস আছে এ কথা সরকারকে বিশ্বাস করতে হবে।' এটাই হচ্ছে মোদ্দাকথা- যুক্তরাষ্ট্র মনে করে বাংলাদেশে আইএস আচে এবং সরকার যেন তা স্বীকার করে নেয়। বাংলাদেশে আইএস নেই- এই কথা বারবার বলে আসছেন স্বরাষ্ট্রমন্ত্রী। পুলিশপ্রধানও বলেছেন, 'পশ্চিমা বিশ্ব বাংলাদেশকে ইরাক-সিরিয়া বানাতে চায়।”
তারেক শামসুর রহমান, বাংলাদেশের পররাষ্ট্রনীতি