Our main goal should be to establish a precedent for a new post-Cold War era, in which the community of nations, working through the United Nations a… - Paul Nitze

Those who know me moderately well will say that I am an assertive, hard-nosed pragmatist. I guess that judgment comes from the fact that I have a firm belief that the world can turn out to be better than it otherwise would be depending upon what individuals, particularly those who have luck on their side, do about it. What is more, I believe Americans, to quite a disproportionate degree, have luck on their side. It is my view that belief is the underlying and basic element of policy and action. First one must sort out matters of belief: who one is, in what relationship to whom, and what general direction in the realm of values is up and what direction is down. Then clear and rigorous logic, based upon a cold and unemotional assessment of the objective evidence concerning the relevant facts, and a careful analysis of the probable outcomes and probable material and moral costs of alternative courses of action, can help to get one from where one is to where one wants, and should want, to be.

One of the most dangerous forms of human error is forgetting what one is trying to achieve. In the gulf crisis, it is crucial that we look beyond our anger at Saddam and remind ourselves of precisely what U.S. interests are in the crisis and what we seek to accomplish.

Why would someone who spent so many years negotiating with the Soviet Union about the size of our nuclear arsenal now say we no longer need it? I know that the simplest and most direct answer to the problem of nuclear weapons has always been their complete elimination. My walk in the woods in 1982 with the Soviet arms negotiator Yuli Kvitsinsky at least addressed this possibility on a bilateral basis. Destruction of the arms did not prove feasible then, but there is no good reason why it should not be carried out now. … It is the presence of nuclear weapons that threatens our existence.