-One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

-We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.

-The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

-Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell

What has always fascinated me about Orwell, is that his seminal works; Animal Farm, about the corruption of the Russian Revolution into the Leninist/Stalinist system of the Soviet Union, and 1984, describing a Totalitarian government (many points of which have come to pass); have come to be touchstones of the political Right, but he was an avowed Socialist and Leftist.

From Wikipedia:

It was the Spanish Civil War that played the most important part in defining his socialism. Having witnessed the success of the anarcho-syndicalist communities, and the subsequent brutal suppression of the anarcho-syndicalists and other revolutionaries by the Soviet-backed Communists, Orwell returned from Catalonia a staunch anti-Stalinist and joined the Independent Labour Party.

Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.

-George Schultz

Sanctions and negotiations can be very ineffective, and indeed foolish, unless the people you are talking with and negotiating with and trying to reach agreements with are people who can be trusted to keep their word.

-Caspar Weinberger

We don’t point a pistol at our own forehead. That is not the way to conduct negotiations.

-Benjamin Netanyahu

The above courtesy of Brainyquote.

The quote I was looking for went something like this:

The Weak do not negotiate – they are dictated to by the Strong. 

Negotiations are only possible in two situations:

Between Equals, or qualitatively/quantitatively matched forces.  On occasion, it is in the interests of a stronger party to grant “equal status” to a negotiating partner. 

Between a smaller/weaker party and a larger/stronger enemy, if the latter has losts its will.

     In the second instance, there are two permutations: 

          1.  The smaller/weaker party is simply using the negotiations to “freeze the field”, and consolidate gains, with the potential of returning to the field in the future.

          2.  The smaller/weaker party is simply using the negotiations as a distraction, while continuing to conflict in other venues, or behind the scenes.

Unfortunately for America, we seem to be stuck in the Second situation, since WWII.  The only real exception has been Iraq and Afghanistan, but the Democrat Party would desperately love to that route on those conflicts as well.