"The optimists' claim that security competition and war among the great powers has been burned out of the system is wrong. In fact all of the major states around the globe still care deeply about the balance of power among themselves for the foreseeable future."

“Bandwagoning is a strategy for the weak.”

“Great powers must be forever vigilant and never subordinate survival to any other goal, including prosperity.”

“The liberal tradition has its roots in the Enlightenment, that period in the eighteenth-century Europe when intellectuals and political leaders had a powerful sense that reason could be employed to make the world a better place.”

“China, in short has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.”

“The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.”

“When an aggressor comes on the scene, at least one other state will eventually take direct responsibility for checking it.”