"[T]here is in Britain a very strong idealistic lobby which reproduces itself down the generations. Their ideals, their hopes and their morals are of course absolutely impeccable. But the question is the practicality and the consequences. Certain aspects of morality may be sound in themselves but hopelessly inappropriate when made the basis for decision-making in international relations. One has to see the world as it really is, to see the realities of power, the realities of leverage and of course the realities of your own interests."
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Historians from EnglandBiographers from the United KingdomPeople from LondonUniversity of Oxford alumniFellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Original Language: English
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Interview with Richard English and Michael Kenny in Cambridge (16 July 1996), quoted in Richard English and Michael Kenny (eds.), Rethinking British Decline (1999), p. 43
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Correlli_Barnett
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Correlli Barnett
Correlli Douglas Barnett (28 June 1927 – 10 July 2022) was an English military historian, who also wrote works of economic history, particularly on the United Kingdom's post-war "industrial decline".
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