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Depopulation Should Be The Highest Priority Of Foreign Policy Towards The Third World, Because The Us Economy Will Require Large And Increasing Amounts Of Minerals From Abroad, Especially From Less Developed Countries

-Henry A. Kissinger

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Depopulation Should Be The

Henry A. Kissinger

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Depopulation Should Be The Highest Priority Of Foreign Policy Towards The Third World, Because The Us Economy Will Require Large And Increasing Amounts Of Minerals From Abroad, Especially From Less Developed Countries

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People Think Responsibility Is Hard To Bear. It's Not. I Think That Sometimes It Is The Absence Of Responsibility That Is Harder To Bear. You Have A Great Feeling Of Impotence.

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Accept Everything About Yourself - I Mean Everything, You Are You And That Is The Beginning And The End - No Apologies, No Regrets.

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Most High Officials Leave Office With The Perceptions And Insights With Which They Entered.

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In 10 Years, There Will Be No More Israel.

We Cannot Always Assure The Future Of Our Friends; We Have A Better Chance Of Assuring Our Future If We Remember Who Our Friends Are.

Now We Have A Whole Series Of Problems - Energy, Environment, Proliferation - Which Go Beyond The Nation. And We Also Know That A Conflict Between Major Powers Would Be A Catastrophe For Which There Is No Compensation In Anything You Can Gain.

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Deng Xiaoping Thought Of Himself As A Great Revolutionary And A Great Reformer. He Had Dismantled The Chinese Communist Management Of The Economy. In My Next-to-last Conversation With Him, Which Was About Six Months Before Tiananmen Square, He Said To Me That His Aim Would Be The Next Phase To Reduce The Communist Party To Philosophical Issues. And I Said, "what's A Philosophical Issue?" And He Said, "well, Like If We Make An Alliance With Russia." Given His View Of Russia, That Was Not The Likeliest Thing That Would Ever Happen.

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90% Of Politicians Give The Other 10% A Bad Name.

I Have Always Expressed Respect For Those People Who Make Public Declarations.

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The Members Of The Islamic Staye Have Cut The Throat Of An American On Television. This Is An Insult To The United States, Which Requires That We Demonstrate That This Is Not An Act That Is Free. I Would Strongly Favor A Strong Attack On Isis For A Period That Is Related To The Murder Of The American.

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A Country That Demands Moral Perfection In Its Foreign Policy Will Achieve Neither Perfection Nor Security.

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Superstars Strive For Approbation; Heroes Walk Alone. Superstars Crave Consensus; Heroes Define Themselves By The Judgment Of A Future They See It As Their Task To Bring About. Superstars Seek Success In A Technique For Eliciting Support; Heroes Pursue Success As The Outgrowth Of Inner Values.

To Have The United States Suddenly Come Up With A Peace Proposal After A Whole Series Of Terrorist Attacks Is Going To Show To The World That This Sort Of Method Is Something That Western Societies Can't Stand.

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A Leader Does Not Deserve The Name Unless He Is Willing Occasionally To Stand Alone.

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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.

It Is Frankly A Mistake Of Amateurs To Believe You Can Gain The Upper Hand In A Diplomatic Negotiation.

In The Middle '50s, I Had Written That The Point Would Come, Inevitably, At Which The Relationship Between The Cause Of Conflict And Political Objectives Would Be Lost.

Let Me Make My Point About Vietnam. When The Nixon Initiation Came Into Office, There Were 550,000 Americans In Combat. And Ending The War Was Not A Question Of Turning Off A Television Channel. And So, Debating On How We Got There And What Judgments Were Made Was Not Going To Help Us.

He [deng Xiaoping] Said That He Did Not Understand Why We Failed To Grasp That The Alternative Was Not Democracy, But Total Chaos And Risking All The Reforms That Had Been Achieved.

In The Current [carter] Administration, Who Can Use The White House Swimming Pool And Tennis Courts Is Decided At The Very Highest Level. President Ford Did Not Bother Himself With Such Minor Details. He Let Me Swim In The Pool. He Only Got Upset When I Tried To Walk Across The Water.

I Would Say The Special Experience Of American Wartime Policy In The Last 40 Years, From Vietnam On, Is That The War Itself Became Controversial In The Country And That The Most Important Thing We Need In The Current Situation Is, Whatever Disagreements There May Be On Tactics, That The Legitimacy Of The War Itself Does Not Become A Subject Of Controversy. We Have To Start With The Assumption, Obviously, That Whatever Administration Is Conducting A War Wants To End It.

At Any Rate, Mutually Assured Destruction Was Never Our Policy.

I Wouldn't Say It's A Split. It's A Difference Of Emphasis. It Does Exist Between, I Would Say, The State Department And The Defense Department.

The Western Concept Of Democracy Is Based On The Idea That The Loser Of An Election Has The Possibility Next Time Round Of Being The Winner. But In The Case Of An Ethnically Or Religiously Divided Country, In Which Minorities Don't Live Peacefully Together, This Necessary Balance Can't Be Properly Guaranteed By Democracy. When Each Ethnic Group Arms Itself, It Is Not Surprising That The Army Of A New State Is Viewed By Part Of The Population As An Ideological Militia.

People Are Generally Amazed That I Would Take An Interest In Any Form That Would Require Me To Stop Talking For Three Hours.

We Are Doomed To Coexist.

We Must Learn To Distinguish Morality From Moralizing.

If You Control The Oil You Control The Country; If You Control Food, You Control The Population.

The Real Distinction Is Between Those Who Adapt Their Purposes To Reality And Those Who Seek To Mold Reality In The Light Of Their Purposes.

My Country's History, Mr. President, Tells Us That It Is Possible To Fashion Unity While Cherishing Diversity, That Common Action Is Possible Despite The Variety Of Races, Interests, And Beliefs We See Here In This Chamber. Progress And Peace And Justice Are Attainable. So We Say To All Peoples And Governments: Let Us Fashion Together A New World Order.

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I Do Not Stand On Protocol. If You Just Call Me Excellency, It Will Be Okay.

I Believe That There Is A Whole Set Of Issues In The World - Environment, Proliferation, Energy, Cyberspace - That Can Only Be Dealt With On A Global Basis. The Traditional Patterns Of National Rivalry And National Competition Are Not Suitable For Those Cases.

The Art Of Good Foreign Policy Is To Understand And To Take Into Consideration The Values Of A Society, To Realize Them At The Outer Limit Of The Possible.

I Don't Know What Happens In The Next Years. But I Cannot Now Design A Policy In Which We Try To Keep China From Developing, Because In Some Years, If They Develop, They Might Be Rich Enough To Challenge Us, And Adopt The Principle That We Will Hold Down Any State That Might In The Future Become Strong. That Would Make Us A World Empire For Which We Wouldn't Have The Talents Or The Convictions.

Leaders Must Invoke An Alchemy Of Great Vision.

One Theory Is That We Will Make War Look So Attractive That We Undermine The Deterrent. That's Never Never Land. What We Have Now Would Have Been Enough To Deter Hitler. But We Are Talking In A Different Order Of Reality.

Whatever Must Happen Ultimately Should Happen Immediately.

I Think An Appeal To American Idealism And Willingness To Sacrifice Would Be An Important Contribution, Because What Is Happening Now In Many Countries, Not Yet In The United States, But In Many European Countries, It's The Inability Of Government To Ask For Sacrifices Of Its People.

Power Is The Great Aphrodisiac.

President Nixon In His Inaugural Address Indicated That He Wanted An Era Of Negotiation. Our Reasoning Was That Whatever Our Ideological Differences, Whatever Our Geopolitical Differences, We Were Condemned To Coexistence By Nuclear Weapons.

Does Anyone Have Any Questions For My Answers?

An Expert Is Someone Who Articulates The Needs Of Those In Power.

In My Life, I Have Almost Always Been On The Side Of Active Foreign Policy. But You Need To Know With Whom You Are Cooperating. You Need Reliable Partners.

Statesman Create; Ordinary Leaders Consume. The Ordinary Leader Is Satisfied With Ameliorating The Environment, Not Transforming It; A Statesman Must Be A Visionary And An Educator.

I Grew Up As A Discriminated Minority In A Dictatorship, So Obviously The Issue Of Human Rights Is A Matter Of Concern For Me.

It Is Not Often That Nations Learn From The Past Even Rarer That They Draw The Correct Conclusions From It. For The Lessons Of Historical Experience, As Of Personal Experience, Are Contingent. They Teach The Consequences Of Certain Actions, But They Cannot Force A Recognition Of Comparable Situations.

We Cannot Give Russia Veto Over Deployment Of Forces On Nato Territory. But We Have To Understand Their Particular Sensitivities, And, Therefore, There Should Be A Dialogue On These Issues.

The Mistake We Make With Many People - Not Just Russia - Is That We Believe We Have The Model, And There Is A Sort Of A Condescension In Our Dialogue With Other Societies, Which Was Especially Painful In Several Administrations To Russia. I Think In Russia, The Yeltsin Period Is Not Considered A Period Of Great Achievement, But A Period Of Corruption And Humiliation.

Every American President, Regardless Of Party, Has Said That America Has An Intense Interest In A Peaceful Resolution. And I Think It Should Be Left At That.

Nixon Had Three Goals: To Win By The Biggest Electoral Landslide In History; To Be Remembered As A Peacemaker; And To Be Accepted By The 'establishment' As An Equal. He Achieved All These Objectives At The End Of 1972 And The Beginning Of 1973. And He Lost Them All Two Months Later-partly Because He Turned A Dream Into An Obsession.

The One Thing Man Fears Is The Unknown. When Presented With This Scenario, Individual Rights Will Be Willingly Relinquished For The Guarantee Of Their Well-being Granted To Them By A World Government, A New World Order.

University Politics Make Me Long For The Simplicity Of The Middle East.

Revolutionaries Are Rarely Motivated Primarily By Material Considerations-though The Illusion That They Are Persists In The West.

Realism In Foreign Policy Is Made Up Of A Clear Set Of Values, Since Difficult Foreign Policy Decisions Are Often Decided With The Narrowest Of Majorities. Without Any Sense Of What Is Right And Wrong, One Would Drown In A Flood Of Difficult And Pragmatic Decisions.

In The Short Term, It Would Not Have Made It Possible To Resume Relations, Because In The Chinese Mind, The Humiliation Of China Started With The Annexation Of Taiwan By Japan. If The United States Had Suddenly Declared Taiwan As A Separate State - For Which We Would Have Had No Support Among Other Nations - The Consequences Would Have Been Giving Up Our Relationship With China And Committing Ourselves To A Long-term Conflict With China.

From A Geo-strategic Point Of View, I Consider Iran A Bigger Problem Than The Islamic State. Isis Is A Group Of Adventurers With A Very Aggressive Ideology. But They Have To Conquer More And More Territory Before They Can Became A Geo-strategic, Permanent Reality. I Think A Conflict With Isis - Important As It Is - Is More Manageable Than A Confrontation With Iran.

Tutelage Is A Comfortable Relationship For The Senior Partner, But It Is Demoralizing In The Long Run. It Breeds Illusions Of Omniscience On One Side And Attitudes Of Impotent Irresponsibility On The Other.

A Little Uncertainty Is Good For Everyone.

The Superpowers Often Behave Like Two Heavily Armed Blind Men Feeling Their Way Around A Room, Each Believing Himself In Mortal Peril From The Other, Whom He Assumes To Have Perfect Vision.

The History Of Things That Didn't Happen Has Never Been Written.

What We In America Call Terrorists Are Really Groups Of People That Reject The International System

We Are All The President's Men.

It Is An Act Of Insanity And National Humiliation To Have A Law Prohibiting The President From Ordering Assassination.

The Chinese Military Budget Today Is Officially Listed As, I Think, About $15 Billion. But Even If You Double It, That's Only A Tenth Of Ours. So The Possibility Of China Challenging The United States For The Next Ten Years Over The Pacific Is Next To Zero. There Could Be A Conflict Between Us And China Over Taiwan, But I Think That, Too, Will Not Occur With The Proper Policies On Both Sides.

We Believe That Peace Is At Hand.

In The 1960s, I Would Have Considered China With Its Cpc An Ideologically More Dynamic Country Than The Soviet Union. But The Soviet Union Was Strategically More Threatening.

You Should Not Go To War For The Privilege Of Withdrawal. You Need To Define Your Objective And The Outcome, And It Cannot Be The Removal Of One Man.

It Is, After All, The Responsibility Of The Expert To Operate The Familiar And That Of The Leader To Transcend It.

Any Fact That Needs To Be Disclosed Should Be Put Out Now Or As Quickly As Possible, Because Otherwise The Bleeding Will Not End.

The Public Life Of Every Political Figure Is A Continual Struggle To Rescue An Element Of Choice From The Pressure Of Circumstance.

If You Control The Food, You Control A Nation. If You Control The Energy, You Control A Region. If You Control The Money, You Control The World.

The Task Of The Leader Is To Get His People From Where They Are To Where They Have Not Been.

The Defining Issue Is That The Government In Taiwan Was Considered To Be The Government Of All Of China, And The Authorities In Beijing Were Not Recognized As A Government Of China. So Taiwan Was The Residuary For All Of China.

The Russian Empire Under Czars And Commissars Has Been Hard To Deal With For Other Countries.

[the New World Order] Cannot Happen Without U.s. Participation, As We Are The Most Significant Single Component. Yes, There Will Be A New World Order, And It Will Force The United States To Change It's Perceptions.

World Government

For Any Student Of History, Change Is The Law Of Life. Any Attempt To Contain It Guarantees An Explosion Down The Road; The More Rigid The Adherence To The Status Quo, The More Violent The Ultimate Outcome Will Be.

Would Food Be Considered An Instrument Of National Power? ... Is The U.s. Prepared To Accept Food Rationing To Help People Who Can't/won't Control Their Population Growth?

There Are Some People Who Think That At Some Time In The Future, China May Challenge Us For Supremacy In The Pacific, And Therefore, What Do We Do Today To Prevent That? And You, Of Course, Will Say That We Will Try To Thwart Any Economic Progress In China. If We Engaged In Such A Policy, We Would Turn A Billion-plus People Into Nationalist Opponents Of The United States.

I Do Not Criticize People Who Take A Public Stand On Human Rights Issues. I Express My Respect For Them. But Some People Are More Influential Without A Public Confrontation.

Create The Impression Of Endless Willingness To Compromise And You Almost Invite Deadlines. That's The Challenge We Now Have In North Korea And Have Had In North Korea For 10 Years. In This Sense, Diplomacy And Foreign Policy And Other Elements Of Political Activity Have To Be Closely Linked And Have To Be Understood By The Negotiators

Our Nation Is Uniquely Endowed To Play A Creative And Decisive Role In The New Order Which Is Taking Form Around Us.

The Russian People, At Least The Ones I Know, Have Pride In Being A Russian. And, Therefore, They Want To Be Taken Seriously In International Affairs.

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