It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out.

~ Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson Humanitarian Intervention Interventionism Isolationism Noninterventionism Realpolitik Sovereignty War

The debacle in Iraq has reinforced the realist dictum, disparaged by idealists in the 1990s, that the legacies of geography, history and culture really do set limits on what can be accomplished in any given place. But the experience in the Balkans reinforced an idealist dictum that is equally true: One should always work near the limits of what is possible rather than cynically give up on any place. In this decade idealists went too far; in the previous one, it was realists who did not go far enough.

~ Robert D. Kaplan

Robert D. Kaplan Bosnia Humanitarian Intervention Idealism Interventionism Iraq Noninterventionism Realpolitik War

International politics is never about democracy and human rights. It's about the interests of states. Remember that, no matter what you are told in history lessons.

~ Egon Bahr

Egon Bahr Democracy Foreign Policy Geopolitics Politics Realpolitik

There is something about the very idea of a city which is central to the understanding of a planet like Earth, and particularly the understanding of that part of the then-existing group-civilization which called itself the West. That idea, to my mind, met its materialist apotheosis in Berlin at the time of the

~ Iain M. Banks

Iain M. Banks Berlin Cities Diziet Sma Mankind Marterialist Apotheosis Multifariously Faceted Realpolitik The Berlin Wall The West

for in the absence of a magistrate (dandadharabhave), the strong will swallow the weak; but under his protection, the weak resist the strong.

~ Kautilya

Kautilya India Realpolitik