Fascism: A Warning

by Madeleine K. Albright

I TELL MY STUDENTS THAT THE FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE OF FOREIGN policy is elementary: to convince other countries to do what we would like them to do. To that end, there are various tools at our disposal, which range from making polite requests to sending in the Marines. The incentives we can offer include everything from words of praise to boxes of seeds to shiploads of tanks. We can apply pressure on the recalcitrant by enlisting allies, friends, and international organizations to reinforce our requests. If right is clearly on our side, we can threaten to support economic and security sanctions, or go ahead and impose them, then tighten them again and again should the government in question refuse to do what we think it must. To concentrate minds, we can arrange peaceful, yet instructive, displays of military prowess in the country’s front yard. We can, if circumstances allow, use covert means to disrupt its activities so that when, for example, a missile is launched, it goes sideways not up. All the while, we can stress the benefits an accord might produce: an end to isolation, a new era of prosperity, long-term security, and peace.

Foreign policy in one paragraph