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61 " Global Heath Security Index, a comprehensive analysis of countries that were best prepared to handle an epidemic or pandemic. "
― Fareed Zakaria , Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World
62 " Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said. "
63 " Having voted in ways that ensure gridlock, Americans point to that very gridlock and despair that any good can come from Washington. "
64 " common element? A competent, well-functioning, trusted state—the quality of government. "
65 " Government investments in science, technology, and infrastructure have slumped sharply "
66 " In 1953, in the midst of the Cold War and with the Korean War still ongoing, he delivered a speech proposing that all nations adopt strict limits on the numbers and nature of arms, with the disarmament process to be administered by the United Nations. "
67 " deconstruction of the administrative state.” For four decades, America has largely been run by people who openly pledge to destroy the very government they lead. "
68 " The most consequential by far was the bubonic plague, which began in Central Asia in the 1330s and spread to Europe in the following decade. "
69 " Between 1947 and 1989, when America was on the one hand building up the liberal international order, it attempted regime change around the world seventy-two times, by one scholar’s count, almost every time without UN approval. "
70 " It was led by an able, technocratic leader who believed in science and good management. "
71 " Outbreaks are inevitable but pandemics are optional,” says Larry Brilliant, the American physician who helped eradicate smallpox forty-five years ago. "
72 " The number of people on the planet has risen fivefold since 1900, while the average lifespan has doubled. "
73 " The political climate in Washington always pushes policymakers toward being “tough” rather than “soft”—which is a dangerous way to frame international affairs. The real question is, can they be smart rather than stupid? "
74 " For four decades, America has largely been run by people who openly pledge to destroy the very government they lead. Is it any wonder that they have succeeded? "
75 " The statesmen who led the Allied countries through war and depression knew better and resolved to give idealism a chance. "
76 " America was defined by “private opulence and public squalor. "
77 " some of the countries that beat the virus had big governments, while others had small ones. What was the common element? A competent, well-functioning, trusted state—the quality of government. "
78 " America has become what Francis Fukuyama calls a “vetocracy. "
79 " giving officials autonomy, discretion, and the ability to exercise their own judgment. It requires recruiting bright, devoted people who are inspired by the chance to serve their country and earn respect for doing it. "
80 " Fear is a great divider—and fears of disease in particular have divided the world in the past. In the nineteenth century, when the bubonic plague had long disappeared from Europe but lingered in some parts of Asia, it reinforced the divide between the industrial and nonindustrial world, between colonizers and colonized. "