Odd Man Out?
When Colin Powell speaks, people listen. But George W. Bush's secretary of state often sounds more like a liberal internationalist from the Clinton administration than he does the designated point person for a White House seemingly determined to revive a Reaganite foreign policy built upon military strength and unabashed unilateralism.
On national missile defense and arms control:
"I believe it is important that we look at missile defense within the context of our entire strategic framework. This framework includes offensive nuclear weapons, our command and control systems, our intelligence systems, arms control including our nonproliferation efforts, and missile defense. If we can put together a complete framework... we will be that much better off in our relations with both friend and foe." –1/17/01
On national missile defense and arms control:
"I believe it is important that we look at missile defense within the context of our entire strategic framework. This framework includes offensive nuclear weapons, our command and control systems, our intelligence systems, arms control including our nonproliferation efforts, and missile defense. If we can put together a complete framework… we will be that much better off in our relations with both friend and foe." –1/17/01
On using unilateral economic sanctions:
"[T]here are occasions where it becomes self-defeating and where it shows a degree of American hubris and arrogance that may not, at the end of the day, serve our interest all that well." –1/17/01
On North Korea:
"We do plan to engage with North Korea to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off. Some promising elements were left on the table, and we’ll be examining those elements." –3/6/01
On U.S. peacekeeping in Bosnia:
"Yes, we do intend to remain engaged politically in the Balkans…. We are always reviewing the size of that commitment, but our forces will stay here as part of our Alliance commitment, and as I have said previously on a variety of occasions, we came in together and we will go out together." –4/11/01
On Fidel Castro:
"He’s done some good things for his people… he is no longer the threat he was." –4/26/01
On international financial institutions:
"[I]n our increasingly globalized world, America’s prosperity and well-being are linked ever more closely to expanding growth and stability worldwide. That is why strong United States leadership in the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO is so crucial to America’s future and the world’s future." –4/27/01
On AIDS:
"[T]he wildfire of AIDS threatens to engulf whole countries and continents. And let me tell you, in today’s interdependent world, we are all in the same neighborhood together and we need to get out our hoses and help put out this fire. Even more importantly, we need to engage in more effective fire prevention efforts. And if we do, we will surely live in a more secure and stable world." –4/27/01
On Africa:
"I want to make sure everybody understands that Africa is important…. There is no part of the world that is not a priority for the United States of America." –5/14/01
On withholding U.N. funding in retaliation for expelling the United States from the Human Rights Commission:
"That seems to me not to be the best way to move forward. That seems to me to be a sign of the kind of arrogance that perhaps we should be avoiding…. That doesn’t seem to me to be the way a great nation such as ours should respond to this loss." –5/14/01
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