Leadership Quote by Marc Forne Molne

Strategy likes to dress up as pragmatism, but Marc Forne Molne is insisting it always has a spine: an underlying philosophy about what a country is for. Coming from a politician rather than a theorist, the line reads less like a seminar claim and more like a warning label. When leaders promise they are being “realistic” or “just following the national interest,” they’re often smuggling in a worldview about human nature, power, markets, borders, and moral obligation. The quote works because it punctures the technocratic alibi.

The intent is clarifying and defensive at once. Clarifying, because it reframes policy debates: not as squabbles over tactics, but as clashes over first principles. Defensive, because it preemptively legitimizes hard choices by rooting them in an outlook that can’t be easily falsified by short-term outcomes. If a strategy fails, you can argue the execution was flawed, not the philosophy.

The subtext is that small states in particular can’t afford “strategy by improvisation.” Forne Molne, associated with Andorra’s modern political development, is speaking from a context where sovereignty is delicate and alignment choices (between larger neighbors, institutions, and global norms) carry existential weight. A microstate’s “strategy” often looks like administration from the outside; he’s asserting it is actually identity-management.

It also doubles as a critique of cynicism. If every strategy is philosophical, then pretending to be above ideology is itself an ideology: one that privileges stability, continuity, and the status quo while denying it has values.