This kind of peace Quotes

“Harry Truman, and the men around him, were learning the necessity of acting first and talking later. Harry Truman was learning there are times when peoples have to be saved whether they want such salvation or not.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The great-power veto, which paralyzed the security arrangements of the Council, had not been unrealistic. It was merely a sublimation of the veto power actually held by powerful countries in the field of action, in the same way that ballots are not sacred, but only a sublimation of clubs or bullets, in the domestic arena.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The Security Council, the peace-keeping arm of the UN, emerged designed for only two functions: to prevent wars between small powers, and to crush any renewed threat from the old Axis enemy.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“National sovereignty, since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, had been considered as absolute in theory. When it was combined with national power, as the case of the USSR, it was absolute. National sovereignty buttressed by real national power could be bound or regulated only by two things: a sense of responsibility, or a fear of consequences.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Having staved off disaster by force of arms, the West had somehow come to the idea that principle, rather than force, was a better basis for peace. The trouble was, publics took an" either/or "attitude toward the question: few stated that force without principle was sterile, but that principle without force behind it was powerless. The great trouble with classic liberal thought and classic liberals is that they have no trouble conceiving principle, but enormous trouble understanding how it must be implemented.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The American public, unaware of the looming geopolitical crisis, demanded that the boys come home, and since the public was armed with the ballot, the boys were going to come home.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The vision of world government was, of course, a shining one. But what was tragic about all this was that nobody, not even liberal opinion, really wanted world government. What was wanted was a world without war.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The USSR felt safe only on a continent it controlled. The movement of Russian power or ideology westward from the Elbe or Danube could only bring the USSR into violent confrontation with the North Atlantic civilization. And the United States had twice taken to crusade to prevent the consolidation of Western Europe under single-power hegemony.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Sociologists believe that viable government can exist only where and when there is a common history, common language, and most important, a common sense of future destiny. Government may be imposed where one or more such factors do not exist, but then it is either imperial, colonial, or tyrannical.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Neither the Russians nor the Americans were the cleverest people, or the most experienced, in the world that followed 1945. The French were rather more civilized, the British more knowledgeable, and even the Italians at times more practical. But if you have the ships, the guns, and the money, too, cleverness or experience is not really necessary. Even a reasonable amount of blundering can be survived.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Russians by history were chess players. The surface game as in chess, was important, but not vital. The real game, for power, control - all the marbles - was the thing. Americans, as a people, did not care for chess. They preferred a ball game, and this was what the USSR would not play. With no greater game in mind, Western policy always fell into the trap of watching the current score, the needs of the day, and the passing scene, never the future. It put more store in ephemeral diplomatic gains than real, if hidden, shifts of power.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Marching into Germany, Americans had no intention of remaining; they had counted on keeping occupation armies on German soil no more than two years. But once involved in Central Europe, and understanding Soviet motives and ambitions, the U.S. government did not dare depart. Gradually, American officialdom began to accept the fact that some problems, like that of Germany, defied any quick solution, and that the price of continued security or success had to be eternal vigilance.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Modern man, especially modern urban intellectual man, without a sense of history or blood soil - the words Hitler's distortion made anathema - understood poorly the seemingly inexorable cycles of human conduct. Men such as Churchill, nonintellectual but brilliant, were not cleverer than the best minds of the West. But they tended to see what was, and not what should be.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Americans - who were a real beneficiary of the British world stabilization, or empire - never quite understood its beneficial nature as far as the Atlantic world was concerned, at least not until it had begun to disappear. When British power cracked, the British Peace ended. Around the world, dozens of areas that had been ruled or overwhelmed by British power and influence would return to the instability, disruption, and petty wars they had known previously. Only now, this instability offered opportunities for Soviet influence.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“The rule of law could not apply abroad; the first thing a lawyer learns, or ought to learn, is that there can be no law without government. And the UN was not conceived as, nor would it ever be, a world government.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Vyshinsky showed the new Soviet ploy: to obscure Russian expansion and Russian tyranny by direct and repeated reminders of former Western imperialism and the Pax Britannica, of which the West had grown ashamed.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“It seems likely the Russians never understood this inherent dichotomy in the American soul. They were genuinely irritated when the United States agreed to a world in which power ruled in 1944, then reneged and wanted some kind of parliamentary world democracy in 1945. This did seem double dealing, but it was hard for Russians to grasp the difficulties of the State Department, which, unlike the Soviet Foreign Office, could not wheel and deal with no regard to public consumption.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“[Vandenberg] said:" I do not know why we must be the only silent partner in this Grand Alliance. There seems to be no fear of disunity, no hesitation in Moscow, when Moscow wants to assert unilateral war and peace aims which collide with ours. There seems to be no fear of disunity, no hesitation in London, when Mr. Churchill proceeds upon his unilateral way to make decisions often repugnant to our ideas and ideals....
"Honest candor compels us to reassert in high places our American faith in the Atlantic Charter. These basic pledges cannot now be dismissed as a mere nautical nimbus. They march with our armies. They sail with our fleets...they sleep with our martyred dead. The first requisite of honest candor...is to relight this torch.
"I am not prepared to guarantee permanently the spoils of an unjust peace. It will not work. I am prepared by effective international cooperation to do our full part in charting happier and safer tomorrows.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace

“Almost all human societies or organisms are held together partly by outside pressures, or fear of a real or fancied danger.”
― T.R. Fehrenbach, This kind of peace