"Well, it's a problem in general with the American military. If you are the biggest and the strongest military power in the world, you have this natural reluctance to learn the quirky ways of the natives in faraway lands."

Next Quote

The Chinese, on the other hand, were in the position of having an American military spy plane on a Chinese military base and they had their own internal problems to deal with. At first, the Chinese weren't all that belligerent. They were just stalling to get their own bureaucracy in line.

— Henry A. Kissinger