Hal Brands > Quotes

“Many believe that the end of COVID-19 will simply arrive with the development of a vaccine. Yet a closer look at one of the central vaccine success stories of the 20th century shows that technological solutions rarely offer resolution to pandemics on their own. Contrary to our expectations, vaccines are not universal technologies. Vaccination practices and the infrastructures in place to deliver them are as diverse as the epidemic management strategies national governments follow. They are always deployed locally, with variable resources and commitments to scientific expertise.”
― Hal Brands, COVID-19 and World Order: The Future of Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation

“Violence was becoming distressingly normal; there were over six hundred bombings or bombing attempts across the country in 1969, and the number climbed still higher the year after.”
― Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy?: Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush

“The Third World debt crisis that erupted in 1981–1982 was a near catastrophe for the global economy. It was also a golden strategic opportunity. Over nearly a decade, Washington tied the provision of new lending and, eventually, debt relief to the enactment of pro-market reforms. The debt “can and should be used as leverage,” U.S. officials wrote.”
― Hal Brands, The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today

“If America were to become a dropout in assuming the responsibility for defending peace and freedom in the world . . . the rest of the world would live in terror,”
― Hal Brands, What Good Is Grand Strategy?: Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush

“For a good overview, see Walter Russell Mead, “The Return of Geopolitics: The Revenge of the Revisionist Powers,” Foreign Affairs 93, no. 3 (May/June 2014), pp. 69–79.”
― Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump

“If body counts are an indication of effectiveness in the stifling of Latin American democracy, then in many cases the Right was without peer.”
― Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War

“He was a lawyer, a political essayist, a diplomat, a politician, a professor, a poet, an advocate of science and technology, an enthusiastic amateur astronomer, a wine expert, and a life-long gardener.”
― Hal Brands, The New Makers of Modern Strategy: From the Ancient World to the Digital Age

“In Berlin and Taiwan, Eisenhower worried that retreat would dishearten allies and deplete U.S. credibility. In both cases, however, defending exposed garrisons would require rapid escalation, which would lead quickly, American planners explained, to the use of tactical nuclear weapons and then to “general nuclear war between the U.S. and the USSR.”
― Hal Brands, The Twilight Struggle: What the Cold War Teaches Us about Great-Power Rivalry Today