Latest Brent Scowcroft Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• America wants to work with friends, with allies, with people of good will, to make this a better world.

  Brent Scowcroft

  America, People, Want

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Fall, Thinking, America

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• We can't make China a friend, but we can behave to make them an enemy.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Enemy, China, Behave

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• Who is the guarantor, if there is one, of a more stable world? It's the United States.

  Brent Scowcroft

  United States, World, Ifs

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• I don't think the Chinese look out at the world and want to overturn the system.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Thinking, Chinese, Looks

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Running, Believe, Population Problem

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• The Russians are not going to do what we want them to do because we want them to do it.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Want

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Enlightenment, Gone, Share

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• Russia right now is searching for its soul. It's trying to figure out what it really is.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Russia, Soul, Trying

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• We have never recognized that Iran lives in a dangerous neighborhood. And it's not surprising that they want some protection. We have not been forthcoming about explaining a security relationship for the region, in which Iran can feel secure and thus maybe willing to do something.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Iran, Want, Protection

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• I think above all, what we need with Iran is patience.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Thinking, Iran, Needs

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• It's not for nothing that the Iranians are known as rug merchants. They are.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Known, Merchants

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• I think America has to do more than be a broker now. Because both the Palestinians are weak and Israel is very weak.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Thinking, Israel, America

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Art, Opportunity, Diplomacy

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  War, Iraq, United States

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• I think there's nothing more dangerous than mislearning lessons of history, and we do it perpetually.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Thinking, Lessons, Dangerous

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Iraq, Different, Vietnam

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• Perhaps the most troubling area in the world goes from the Balkans through the Middle East and in Central Asia.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Middle East, World, Asia

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Country, Military, Iraq

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• America is stronger than any state probably since the Roman Empire. But we can't do what used to be done with that kind of strength.

  Brent Scowcroft

  America, Stronger, Done

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• For most of mankind, the average person knew what was happening in his own village and the next one, and nothing beyond that, and he didn't care, so that leaders were able to guide their countries almost irrespective of what people really thought because they weren't involved in it. Now, everybody knows what's happening instantaneously.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Country, Average, People

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• Everybody is within reach of a television set. And so they're all politicized, and they're all stimulated, and then they have these desires, pleasures, hates, resentments, and so on, and they're reacting instantaneously.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Hate, Desire, Television

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• Information technology has politicized the world's population.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Technology, Population, World

  Source: www.nytimes.com

• 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.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Boys, West, Problem

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous. They want to achieve a return to the Islamic purity of the Middle Ages.

  Brent Scowcroft

  Islamic, Age, Elements

  Source: www.spiegel.de