Brent Scowcroft Quotes
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I don't think the Chinese look out at the world and want to overturn the system.
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Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. We are tied down by a tiny little country - Iraq. It's amazing, given the disparity in military economic strength. It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them.
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The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.
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If Iraq were to descend into chaos, the Europeans would feel the effects just as much as we would.
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Much of what we know about mathematics and trade comes from the Arabs. Then came stagnation, and now they're the West's whipping boy. This is a problem that cannot be solved overnight, and certainly not militarily.
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I think America has to do more than be a broker now. Because both the Palestinians are weak and Israel is very weak.
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We believe we are creating the beginning of a new world order coming out of the collapse of the US-Soviet antagonisms.
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Information technology has politicized the world's population.
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We must find out where the roots of terrorism lie.
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First of all, I think the Saudis are deeply concerned about the collapse of negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and the resumption of conflict.
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The UN could help the Iraqi government get on its feet and help the United States withdraw a bit more.
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If you look back at the first Gulf war, the Arabs sent forces, they sent money. So their interests in Iraq are clear, but they're nowhere to be seen now. Why? Because right now, it's dangerous to be seen as supporting the United States.
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Osama bin Laden is going after us to get us out of the region, so he can deal with the regimes that he sees in the region, or replace them with purists.
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But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks.
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I think that America is a part of the world, that we want to cooperate with the world. We are not the dominant power in the world, that everyone falls in behind us. But we want to reach out and cooperate.
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A colossal event is upon us, the birth of a New World Order.
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The Russians are not going to do what we want them to do because we want them to do it.
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Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.
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Simply killing everyone who is already a terrorist today won't solve the problem.
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After the '30s, we said, "no more Munichs." And it got us in a lot of problems. Then we said, "No more Vietnams." Now if we say, "No more Iraqs," the next one won't be an Iraq. It will be something different. You can't learn lessons.
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Saddam's ouster will not necessarily lead to the same result, since Iraq lacks democratic traditions. Democracy doesn't just consist of holding elections.
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Russia right now is searching for its soul. It's trying to figure out what it really is.
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I believe the Chinese are gradually realizing that they're dependent on the system that, as they run out of energy, for example, they have to reach out to foreign sources for energy, for raw materials. They have to reach out to the world for markets. They have to export. They have to maintain full employment. They've got a terrible population problem. So they need a stable world, in a way.
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Europeans are familiar with terrorism and violence. We have not experienced a true conflict on our soil in a hundred years, and especially not one that involved 3,000 dead.
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I think there's nothing more dangerous than mislearning lessons of history, and we do it perpetually.
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I'm afraid that the United States is more isolated today than at any other time in my memory.
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The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous. They want to achieve a return to the Islamic purity of the Middle Ages.
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Since the days of Peter the Great, Russians have been maybe Europeans who didn't share in the enlightenment and the reformation, or are they Mongol Asians with the European veneer. And they've gone back and forth.
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Democracy doesn't just consist of holding elections.
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It is beyond dispute that Saddam Hussein is a menace.
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