American politics are normally a result of pragmatic and not philosophical reasoning. No one in Washington has said we now prefer multilateralism.

Military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.

It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

You become a superpower by being strong but also by being wise and by being farsighted. But no state is strong or wise enough to create a world order alone.

Nothing is more urgent than a serious, dare I say compassionate, debate as to where we are going at home and abroad. Technicians cannot master revolutions; every great achievement was an idea before it became a reality. Cathedrals cannot be built by those who are paralyzed by doubt or consumed by cynicism. If a society loses the capacity for great conception, it can be administered but not governed.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

In the period after the Second World War, there were still leaders in Europe who represented weak countries, but possessed a sense of global foreign policy. Nowadays, on the other hand, there are politicians who represent pretty powerful countries, but whose citizens are not prepared to sacrifice themselves for the state.