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21 " When there is a surplus of money chasing assets such as homes, stocks, or bonds, prices rise and interest rates fall. Eventually prices reach irrational levels, and then they collapse. Money becomes scarce, and inefficient businesses are forced to shut down. Efficient businesses survive, and the cycle starts again. This has been repeated over and over since modern capitalism arose. "
― George Friedman , The Next Decade: What the World Will Look Like
22 " While America’s imperial power might degrade, power of this magnitude does not collapse quickly except through war. German, Japanese, French, and British power declined not because of debt but because of wars "
23 " But wishes don’t make policy. Policy is made by reality, and the reality of what has been created, whether intentionally or not, can’t be abandoned without breathtakingly severe consequences. "
24 " Presidents may run for office on ideological platforms and promised policies, but their presidency is actually defined by the encounter between fortune and virtue, between the improbable and the unexpected—the thing that neither their ideology nor their proposals prepared them for—and their response. The president’s job is to anticipate what will happen, minimize the unpredictability, then respond to the unexpected with cunning and power. "
25 " Ideals without power are simply words—they can come alive only when reinforced by the capacity to act. Reality is understanding how to wield power, but by itself it doesn’t guide you toward the ends to which your power should be put. Realism devoid of an understanding of the ends of power is frequently another word for thugishness, which is ultimately unrealistic. Similarly, idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can be corrected only by a profound understanding of power in its complete sense, while realism uncoupled from principle is frequently incompetence masquerading as tough-mindedness. Realism and idealism are not alternatives but necessary complements. Neither can serve as a principle for foreign policy by itself. "
26 " the American people must mature. We are an adolescent lot, expecting solutions to insoluble problems and perfection in our leaders. "
27 " Maintaining the balance of power should be as fundamental to American foreign policy as the Bill of Rights is to domestic policy. "
28 " At the height of the British Empire, Lord Palmerston said, “It is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow. "
29 " Machiavelli wrote, “The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms. You cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.” This is a better definition of realism than the realists have given us. "
30 " Terrorism derives from weakness, focusing on the psyche in order to make the terrorist appear more powerful than he is. The terrorist’s goal is to be treated as a significant threat when in fact he isn’t one. "
31 " Terrorism is an act of violence whose primary purpose is to create fear and, through that, a political result. "
32 " In the course of the century, so many individual decisions are made that no single one of them is ever critical. Each decision is lost in the torrent of judgments that make up a century. "
33 " Recent presidents have gone off on ad hoc adventures. They have set unattainable goal because they have framed the issue incorrectly, as they believed their own rhetoric. "
34 " my literary agent, for his support and encouragement "