Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we've had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I've taken.
One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries.
I believe in diplomacy; I don't believe in talking to... that talking to Iran somehow constitutes a concession or a favour.
The most successful cultural diplomacy strategy integrates people-to-people or arts/culture/media-to-people interactions into the basic business of diplomacy. The programs in Afghanistan, Egypt, and Iran all contribute to core goals of U.S. policy in those countries.
We did more to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions with a computer virus than we ever could have with bombs (and we did still more with diplomacy - the abandonment of which is also bad for our military, because militaries can only stop a problem, not fix a problem).
Israel and the Palestinians had been at the table together for decades until the Obama/Mitchell/Rahm Emanuel decision to demand a total end to Israeli construction froze not the settlements but the diplomacy.
Traditionally, diplomacy was done in an environment of information scarcity. Ambassadors would send back telegrams to foreign ministries, comfortable in the knowledge that their views of a country would be the only source of information the minister would see.
Shortly after assuming the role of senior adviser in the Trump White House, world leaders began to take note of Ivanka Trump's ability to engage in diplomacy effectively - a skill she has consistently used to help benefit women in the workplace.
Our diplomacy and development budget is not just about reducing spending and finding efficiencies. We need a frank conversation about what we stand for as that 'shining city on a hill.' And that conversation begins by acknowledging that we can't do it on the cheap.
Measuring success in cultural diplomacy - the use of education, creative expression in any form, or people-to-people exchange to increase understanding across regions, cultures, or peoples - is challenging. How does one quantify changes in attitude, abandoning stereotypes, or feeling empathy as a result of a performance, a film, a book?
The Obama administration has been trying out a new policy toward Syria since the day it came to office. The Bush cold shoulder was viewed as a primitive reaction, now to be replaced by sophisticated diplomacy. Outreach would substitute for isolation.
An effective U.S. policy toward Sudan - one capable of changing the situation in the south and affecting the lives of its people - will require top-level attention and a great deal of energy. It should have three elements: aid, diplomacy, and financial disclosure.