29 Quotes by Robert Kagan

If a caterpillar doesn't know its future has wings, it hardly experiences itself as land-bound.

Foreign policy is like hitting a baseball: if you fail 70 percent of the time, you go to the Hall of Fame.

When it comes to setting national priorities, determining threats, defining challenges, and fashioning and implementing foreign and defense policies, the United States and Europe have parted ways.

When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails. But nations without great military power face the opposite danger: When you don't have a hammer, you don't want anything to look like nails.

When you have a hammer, all problems start to look like nails.

If a caterpillar doesn’t know its future has wings, it hardly experiences itself as land-bound.

Based on all criteria – military power, economic influence, cultural dominance – America remains number one, even though other, new players are increasingly challenging it in that role.

History had not led to the triumph of liberalism; it had led to Hitler and Stalin.

It turns out that human beings yearn not only for freedom, autonomy, individuality, and recognition. Especially in times of difficulty, they also yearn for security, order, and a sense of belonging to something larger than themselves, something that submerges autonomy and individuality – which autocracies often provide better than democracies.