Quote of the Week archive

(rMarch 2009) "The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they will sleep." -Otto von Bismarck, The German Empire's first Chancellor
(February/March 2009) "(Britain and the United States) have historically looked at the world in a different way than have most of the European countries. The British Empire was, and the United States is, concerned not just with the balance of power in one particular corner of the world but with the evolution of what we today call 'world order.' A worldwide system of trade and fincance made both Britain and the United States rich; those riches were what gave them the power to project the military force that ensured the stability of their international systems. Both Britain and the United States spent less time thinking about the traditional military preoccupations of European power diplomacy and more time thinking about money and trade. 'A nation of shopkeepers!' Napoleon scoffed about Britain - but the shopkeepers got him in the end."
Mead, Walter Russell. Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World. New York: Routledge, 2002. P xvi.

(February 2009) "Southern values had always led many young men to pursue military careers; the economic devastation of the Civil War and the social prestige of its veterans made military careers even more attractive to subsequent generations and ... established a regional ethos of military service and combative patriotism that continues to influence southern, and therefore national, politics." Mead, Walter Russel. Special Providence. New York: Routledge, 2002. P 44.

(January/February 2009) "States are self-regarding units. State behavior varies more with differences of power than with differences in ideology, internal structure of property relations, or in governmental form. In self-hellp systems, the pressures of competition weigh more heavily than ideological preferences or internal political pressures." Kenneth Waltz. Realism and International Politics. New York: Routledge, 2008. P 42.

(January 2009) "My job is to, like, think beyond the immediate." -George W. Bush

(December 2008) "Force is least visible where power is most fully and most adequately present... the usefulness of force should not be confused with its usability... [that would be] comparable to saying that the police force that seldom if ever employs violence is weak or that a police force is strong only when policemen are shooting their guns." Kenneth Waltz. Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw Hill, 1979. p. 185.

(December 2nd - December 16th, 2008) (OK, sometimes it's more than a week, sorry!) "Be polite; write diplomatically; even in a declaration of war one observes the rules of politeness." -Otto von Bismarck, First Chancellor of Germany in the late 19^th century. Quoted from URL: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/otto_von_bismarck.html

(November 24^th - December 1^st, 2008) "All treaties between great states cease to be binding when they come in conflict with the struggle for existence." -Otto von Bismarck, First Chancellor of Germany in the late 19^th century. Quoted from URL: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/otto_von_bismarck.html

(November 16^th - 23^rd, 2008) "Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war." -Otto von Bismarck, First Chancellor of Germany in the late 19^th century. Quoted from URL: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/otto_von_bismarck.html

(November 7^th - 16^tth, 2008) "People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election." -Otto von Bismarck, First Chancellor of Germany in the late 19^th century. Quoted from URL: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/otto_von_bismarck.html
(October 31^st - November 6^th, 2008): "This war would be one the Bush administration chose to fight but did not have to fight. Even if such a war goes well and has positive long-range consequences, it will still have been unnecessary. And if it goes badly -- whether in the form of high U.S. casualtiies, significant civilian deaths, a heightened risk of terrorism, or increased hatred of the United States in the Arab and Islamic world -- then its architects will have even more to answer for." Mearsheimer and Walt, (who belong to the realist school of thought on international relations, often accused of being hawkish) quoted in 2003 in Globalization of World Politics. Ed. Baylis, Smith, and Owens. Oxford, 2008, pg. 104.

(October 23^rd - 30^th, 2008): "If the east coast was good enough for Al Qaeda, it should be good enough for [the Republicans]" -Sarah Vowel on the Daily Show with Jon Stewwart.

(October 16^th - October 23^rd, 2008): "[Foucault claims] that all forms of knowledge are potentially dangerous, including those that are designed to promote progress, [because they contain the risk of domination]. Intrinsic to such world views are distinctions between those who posses the truth and those who live in ignorance. Therein lies the danger of domination. In the case of cosmopolitanism, the distinction between those who think globally and those who remain wedded to particular communities may lead to forms of power and exclusion which are established in the name of humanity.

"This argument resonates with claims that cosmopolitan perspectives, which include the universal human rights culture, may form the basis for new forms of Western power over 'backward' societies. The idea of humanitarian intervention has been criticized because it elevates 'civilized' Western liberal societies and because it increases the danger of force which may cause great suffering to those it is designed to assist (as in Iraq at the present time)." -Andrew Linklater. The Globalization of World Politics. Ed. Baylis, Smith, and Owens. Oxford, 2008.

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