It is not love, or morality, or international law that determines the outcome of world affairs, but the changing distribution of organized force

The study of the powers that shape, maintain and alter the state is the basis of all political insight and leads to the understanding that the law of power governs the world of states just as the law of gravity governs the physical world.

for in the absence of a magistrate (dandadharabhave), the strong will swallow the weak; but under his protection, the weak resist the strong.

Generally it must be stated that realpolitik has been better at dividing than at ruling. Take it as a whole since Kissinger called on the Shah in 1972, and see what the harvest has been.

International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power

America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests