Saudi Arabia has allowed training on its soil of American forces.

A lot of people think international relations is like a game of chess. But it’s not a game of chess, where people sit quietly, thinking out their strategy, taking their time between moves. It’s more like a game of billiards, with a bunch of balls clustered together.

No matter how hard we might wish, we will not be able to transform China’s behavior overnight.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

Japan is an important ally of ours. Japan and the United States of the Western industrialized capacity, 60 percent of the GNP, two countries. That’s a statement in and of itself.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Egypt is the second-largest recipient over a long period of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel is first.

Fifty years of isolating Cuba had failed to promote democracy, setting us back in Latin America. That’s why we restored diplomatic relations, opened the door to travel and commerce, and positioned ourselves to improve the lives of the Cuban people.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes… can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of war.

I started to make a study of the art of war and revolution and, whilst abroad, underwent a course in military training. If there was to be guerrilla warfare, I wanted to be able to stand and fight with my people and to share the hazards of war with them.

After a hard day of basic training, you could eat a rattlesnake.

I want the troops from Great Britain and the U.S. to be successful, but by the same token, Afghanistan has always been a screw-up.

A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries.

The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative.

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

For somebody who loves foreign policy, being Secretary is the best job in the world – but it doesn’t happen twice.

After 2014, we will support a unified Afghanistan as it takes responsibility for its own future.

Foreigners don’t want to invest any more in France – and this is not working.

I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there’s a good English phrase for it – cold war.

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.

The fact is, with every friendship you make, and every bond of trust you establish, you are shaping the image of America projected to the rest of the world. That is so important. So when you study abroad, you’re actually helping to make America stronger.

It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008-9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons.

There are a lot of inaccuracies out there when it comes to the SEAL training process. You will see guys carrying logs around on television. They think that the hardest part about being on a SEAL team is getting through that training. The fact of the matter is, if you have a good attitude, that training is fun. I had a blast.

NATO was constructed on the – with the reason, whether one believes it or not, that it was going to defend Western Europe from Russian assault. Once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, that reason was gone. So, first question: why does NATO exist?

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

The Russians feared Ike. They didn’t fear me.

We are moving towards a world that is reordering itself and that may appear more ordered at some periods of time, but I see no sign that we are moving towards a world order in my definition of it – namely, a system which is accepted, which is internalized by the majority of the key participants.

In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.

The name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon – there are more Muhammads than anything else. When I joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim, they gave me the most famous name because I was the champ.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

I have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

It’s a near miracle that nuclear war has so far been avoided.

I believe mutual respect for one another and cooperation should be the basis for relationships with foreign nations.

Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That’s part of the normal diplomatic relations.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Now if there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else’s affairs.

We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.

The Bush Administration’s failure to be consistently involved in helping Israel achieve peace with the Palestinians has been both wrong for our friendship with Israel, as well as badly damaging to our standing in the Arab world.

We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times… and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen.

The U.S. is not constructing a palatial embassy, by far the largest in the world and virtually a separate city within Baghdad, and pouring money into military bases, with the intention of leaving Iraq to Iraqis.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.

When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them – lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

International summits and organisations like WTO take decisions, which will bind us, and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.

There’s not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

I think, under President Obama, who was a really bright guy – I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics – but we got to the point internationally where our friends didn’t trust us. They were confused. And our enemies didn’t quite respect us.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

There are nuclear-weapons-free zones in several parts of the world already, except that they’re not implemented fully, because the U.S. won’t allow it.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

The United States is supplying the most modern and sophisticated weaponry to Israel to the tune of billions of dollars every year.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

Free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don’t attack each other. Free nations don’t develop weapons of mass destruction.

We live in an inter-dependent world. An isolated India is not in our interest.

Everybody has forgotten that Russia helped start the Second World War.