"For 400 years, world history was made by Europeans. Many of the great ideas by which we live — constitutional government, freedom of the individual, the ideas of the Enlightenment — originated in Europe and were spread by Europe around the world. Now this region, which was dynamic and built the world, has become too preoccupied with itself. It confines itself basically to the exercise of soft power. At present, no European government has the capacity to ask its people for sacrifices on behalf of foreign policy. Unless Europe can recover some of its historic dynamism, there will be a big hole in the world system as it has until now manifested itself."
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Anti-communists from the United StatesCentenariansUnited States Secretaries of StateDiplomats of the United StatesNobel Peace Prize laureates
Original Language: English
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As quoted in "World Chaos and World Order: Conversations With Henry Kissinger", The Atlantic, November 10, 2016
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger
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