Roger Altman Quotes

We should change our attitude toward the United Nations. There has to be some power in the world superior to our own. We should not have attacked Iraq without the okay of the United Nations. Now we have to live with that mistake. We're living with it, and too many of our guys are dying with it.

Since I came to the World Bank in 2007, I have argued that we must 'modernize multilateralism.'

Over many years, the United States has worked to persuade and compel governments around the world to abide by the rules. By spurning our own rules, we put that effort at risk.

We must recognize that as the dominant power in the world we have a special responsibility. In addition to protecting our national interests, we must take the leadership in protecting the common interests of humanity.

To claim the World Bank is just an extension of U.S. foreign policy is just wrong.

America has saved the world most of the time, but messed it up a couple of times.

We were instrumental in creating the United Nations and the World Bank, and now we threaten their health.

America must always lead on the world stage.

America is a world leader, but we should not be its policeman or ATM.

The U.S. should worry about the effects of its polices on the rest of the world. We would like to live in a world where countries take into account the effect of their policies on other countries and do what is right, broadly, rather than what is just right given the circumstances of that country.

We are a global power, active and responsible on the world stage. This will never change.

Without American leadership at the U.N., countries just continue to talk and socialize and spend taxpayer dollars.

The entire planet is drawn to Indian culture and soft power. The global community looks to us for solutions to international problems - whether terrorism, money laundering or climate change. In a globalised world, our responsibilities are also global.

It is, for me, clear that the world needs a United States that is engaged in security issues, in development issues, in human rights issues. The contribution of the United States for global affairs is absolutely crucial. And the cooperation with the U.N. is very important from our perspective.

The United Nations represents not a final stage in the development of world order, but only a primitive stage. Therefore its primary task is to create the conditions which will make possible a more highly developed organization.

Our approach [to global security] has changed by the way we've elevated development. The biggest lesson is to recognize global responsibility.

We live in an inter-dependent world. An isolated India is not in our interest. Just because we are a large country, we cannot be arrogant and think that we can ignore others. We live in a different era. Terrorism is global and can come from even remote countries. International summits and organizations like WTO take decisions which will bind us and if we are not present in such summits, we may be hurt by the decisions taken.

Sadly, I do my homework. I've a soft spot for the boring minutiae. I read the Charter of the United Nations before meeting with Kofi Annan. I read the Meltzer report, and then I'll read C. Fred Bergsten's defense of institutions like the World Bank and the I.M.F. It's embarrassing to admit.

During the three decades of its existence, the effectiveness of the United Nations has, on the whole, tended to decrease, particularly in the field of peace and security and, more generally, all issues in which the developed countries feel they have important stakes.

Europe must learn to live in and with the world, not to dominate it nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous.

No nation is so great as to be able to afford, in the long run, to remain outside an increasingly universal League of Nations.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

There is no international problem that can be addressed or solved without the engagement and leadership of the United States and everybody in the world knows that, its just fact of life. So sometimes I think we could conduct ourselves with a little more humility.

I have concluded that the U.N. can do a few things well.

The performance of international institutions will be symptomatic of the domestic political priorities of influential member states. International institutions don't really have a life and a mind of their own.