"The United States cannot feed every person, lift every person out of poverty, cure every disease, or stop every conflict. But our power and status have conferred upon us a tremendous responsibility to humanity"
About this Quote
Lugar is doing a careful bit of political aikido: he starts by lowering the temperature of American messianism, then pivots to justify American engagement on moral and strategic grounds. The opening list is a deliberately blunt catalog of limits: feeding every person, ending poverty, curing disease, stopping conflict. It’s the language of overpromising presidents and impatient voters, and Lugar names it only to disarm it. He’s telling the public, and just as pointedly Congress, that the U.S. isn’t a global parent with infinite bandwidth.
Then comes the hinge word: "But". The subtext is that restraint is not retreat. By invoking "power and status", Lugar smuggles in a hard-nosed realism about hierarchy in international affairs. Nations with leverage don’t get to pretend they’re just another bystander; influence creates obligation. "Conferred upon us" is a rhetorical sleight of hand: it softens the uncomfortable fact that power is accumulated through history, economics, and sometimes coercion, by making responsibility sound almost bestowed by circumstance rather than chosen by ambition.
The context tracks with Lugar’s brand as a Republican internationalist shaped by late Cold War thinking: pragmatic, alliance-friendly, wary of isolationism, and attentive to threats that ignore borders (hunger, disease, instability). He’s implicitly arguing for foreign aid, diplomacy, and security cooperation not as charity, but as stewardship. The line reassures skeptics that America can’t fix everything, while warning that opting out has a cost: when the most capable actor shrugs, crises metastasize and the vacuum fills with chaos or rivals.
Then comes the hinge word: "But". The subtext is that restraint is not retreat. By invoking "power and status", Lugar smuggles in a hard-nosed realism about hierarchy in international affairs. Nations with leverage don’t get to pretend they’re just another bystander; influence creates obligation. "Conferred upon us" is a rhetorical sleight of hand: it softens the uncomfortable fact that power is accumulated through history, economics, and sometimes coercion, by making responsibility sound almost bestowed by circumstance rather than chosen by ambition.
The context tracks with Lugar’s brand as a Republican internationalist shaped by late Cold War thinking: pragmatic, alliance-friendly, wary of isolationism, and attentive to threats that ignore borders (hunger, disease, instability). He’s implicitly arguing for foreign aid, diplomacy, and security cooperation not as charity, but as stewardship. The line reassures skeptics that America can’t fix everything, while warning that opting out has a cost: when the most capable actor shrugs, crises metastasize and the vacuum fills with chaos or rivals.
Quote Details
| Topic | Human Rights |
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