Leon Kass Quotes

I saw my job [as president] as to try to move the world from an unstable condition of interdependence toward more integrated cooperative world community. Therefore, my approach was to cooperate wherever possible and to build institutions of cooperation, an expanded NATO, the World Trade Organization, the Summit of the Americas, the Asian Pacific Leaders, all those, the coalition to fight in Bosnia and Kosovo, to cooperate wherever possible but to act alone if we had to.

Lightly armed nations can move toward war just as easily as those which are armed to the teeth, and they will do so if the usual causes of war are not removed.

For future geopolitical stability and global prosperity, we need to build a culture of greater trust and understanding between China, America and the rest of the world.

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.

Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.

We can have a World War, I see absolutely no reason why we shouldn't have a World Party.

If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

Governments and nations should sit together and resolve issues. Reforms must be reached through understanding. But others should not interfere.

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

Warmaking doesn't stop warmaking. If it did, our problems would have stopped millennia ago.

It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic enthusiasm and resentment over real or fancied wrongs, urging them forward to war.

Addressing global resentment cannot be put off. If we do not learn to use our predominant power with great restraint, we will antagonize the world.

Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.

Using the right of veto would be shooting the Americans in the back.

China and the United States have major influence in international affairs and shoulder important responsibilities in upholding world peace and promoting common development.

The United Nations remains our most important global actor. These days we are continuously reminded of the enormous responsibility of the Security Council to uphold international peace and stability.

It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.

Most of the international community, most of the countries around the world, don't want any side, any party to take unilateral steps. They would like that all of us to stick to the road map.

Politicians do not enter into wars lightly. It is usually the military themselves who are keener to become involved.

The United Nations system is still the best instrument for making the world less fragile.

Do we really want a world in which every country feels entitled to attack any other that might someday threaten it?

Without the U. N., world politics is inconceivable.