The Strategist Quotes

“First and foremost, he is deeply concerned with protecting and advancing American interests. He is what international relations theorists would call a realist. At the same time, he is an internationalist because he sees the United States and most of the rest of the world as having congruent and ultimately reconcilable interests and values.”
― Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

“Brent Scowcroft generally exercised his power in subtle, nonobvious ways, quietly influencing policy through the force of his insights and his talent for persuasion.”
― Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

“This is where I believe in the importance of history,” Scowcroft says. The study of history has taught him about “how countries behave” and has helped him to remain objective about people, events, institutions, and forces—their origins, their likely interactions, and the possible future results.”
― Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

“He recognizes the moving parts in a complex situation, sees how the pieces fit together, and devises the most appropriate response, considering not just the military element but also the economic and political aspects of a problem. “He’d see the necessary integration of the tools of American power, not just military power,” Lee Hamilton says. “And he had a keen sense of the limitations of military power.”8”
― Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security

“DON’T ATTACK SADDAM,” read the headline of a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday, August 15, 2002. The twelve-hundred-word opinion piece argued that the invasion and occupation of Iraq would be “very expensive” and have “very serious” and “bloody” consequences. It cautioned that a campaign against Iraq would divert the United States from the real war against terrorism for an “indefinite period” and that such a war, if conducted without full international support, would strain relations between the United States and other countries. And without “enthusiastic international cooperation,” especially on intelligence, it was by no means clear the United States could win the global war against terrorism.1 The op-ed argued that Saddam Hussein was first and foremost a “power-hungry survivor” who had little cause to join with Al Qaeda and that he could be deterred just like other aggressors. It warned, too, that should the United States attack Iraq, the ensuing war could “swell the ranks of terrorists,” sidetrack US foreign policy from grappling with the more important Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and possibly “destabilize Arab regimes in the region” (the irony being that “one of Saddam’s strategic objectives” was precisely such destabilization).”
― Bartholomew Sparrow, The Strategist: Brent Scowcroft and the Call of National Security