Walter Russell Mead Quotes

#1. It is a kind of ego booster, the way Egypt's winning the 1973 war, in the first stages, was an uplift. But I did not find when I spoke to people that the war in Iraq was seen as the major issue in American-Arab relations.

Walter Russell Mead

#2. The Arab states don't seem to do a good job of providing for their own people, so I am not sure why they would suddenly develop an ability to help the Palestinians.

Walter Russell Mead

#3. This very individualistic form of Protestant Christianity that became so basic in English and then American life is to a large degree responsible for the historical success of Britain and America.

Walter Russell Mead

#4. What begins in arrogance often ends in shame.

Walter Russell Mead

#5. The African villager with a solar powered smartphone has more access to more information than Louis XIV in the halls of Versailles.

Walter Russell Mead

#6. We Americans look at the last 300 years of history, and we basically see a world that's getting better and better. The rule of freedom expands. The economy develops. We have risen to become the world's greatest power.

Walter Russell Mead

#7. The American people are extraordinarily comfortable, affluent, and secure. It's easy for us to make the argument that God's purpose is being fulfilled through history and through the rise of American power. And to some degree, it probably is.

Walter Russell Mead

#8. The United States is both a conservative power, defending the international status quo against those who would change it through violence, and a revolutionary power seeking to replace

Walter Russell Mead

#9. The historian assesses that the investment of the wealthy classes in the Bank of England wedded them to the fate of the nation as a whole and to the maintenance of its stability.

Walter Russell Mead

#10. Mr. Obama's approach to engagement to some degree makes him dependent on people who wish neither him nor America well. This doesn't have to end badly and I hope that it doesn't - but it's not an ideal position after one's first year in power.

Walter Russell Mead

#11. Life isn't easy, and leadership is harder still.

Walter Russell Mead

#12. Jordan is the only Arab state that has provided citizenship to Palestinian refugees and integrated them. But something has to be done about the Palestinians living in refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

Walter Russell Mead

#13. There is not a great sense that the Americans know what they are doing, or are making much progress in Iraq. And there is satisfaction in seeing that the Iraqis are successful in resisting the United States.

Walter Russell Mead