Sublime

If Foreign Relations was going to be the main point of the Republican attack, Lyndon Johnson said, Democratic defenses on that committee should be especially strong, but they were, in fact, weak. They should be shored up by senators with the expertise in foreign affairs, and the force, to stand up to Taft. He had two senators in mind who fit that

Graduates of those universities naturally gravitated toward the press and government service. So “The Israel Lobby,” refined into a bestselling book, penetrated the Beltway.

Le premier risque des démocraties reste toutefois, comme l’avait prédit Tocqueville, leur décomposition intérieure sous la pression de l’individualisme, de la corruption de l’information, de la démagogie, de la fascination devant les hommes forts et la violence.

The history of ancient Greece showed that, in a democracy, emotion dominates reason to a greater extent than in any other political system, thus giving freer rein to the passions which sweep a state into war and prevent it getting out at any point short of the exhaustion and destruction of one or other of the opposing sides. Democracy is a system

As recipients of US foreign aid, it was in their best interest to appear to be supporting the US in its war effort.

What conditions are most associated with a state’s weakening or collapse? Vulnerable countries tend to be those that lack a commitment to the rule of law, whether because of corruption, leaders with too much power, or some combination of the two. This in turn reduces incentives to own private property or invest in the country, which stymies

the test of statesmen is the durability of political structures under stress, while prophets gauge their achievements against absolute standards. If the statesman assesses possible courses of action on the basis of their utility rather than their ‘truth’, the prophet regards this approach as sacrilege, a triumph of expediency over universal

Anyone seeking an explanation of the Senate’s willingness to allow the rise of the executive agreement, which freed it from the details of foreign policy, need look no further: the Senate simply had no staff adequate to handle the details of foreign policy. The adversary relationship—the relationship that had lain at the heart of the Framers’