John Lewis Gaddis Quotes

All in all, the League of Nations is not inevitably bound, as some maintain from time to time, to degenerate into an impotent appendage of first one, then another of the competing great powers.

Just as the United States doesn't like others to take charge, other countries also don't like the United States to play a dominant role in the United Nations.

Multilateralism may be little more than a polite way of camouflaging what is in practice unilateralism with allies.

Great powers can't get tired, because the international order is not self-governing.

The United Nations is actually a mid-20th century institution and much weaker than it was when it was originally created, because governments themselves are less capable of implementing the kind of promises or programs that they have put forward.

It is not just for a few states to sit and veto global approvals.

There are nearly 200 countries and a population of over 6 billion in today's world. International affairs should be addressed by all countries through consultations rather than monopolised by a few powers.

The interests of the United States are better served by demanding reform and seeing that reform takes place than by removing our influence from the UN.

America has a critical role to play as the most powerful member of the world community.

The world is fortunate - for the time being, at least - that it has an American president in Obama who is prepared to take a conciliatory and concessive attitude towards America's decline and that it has a Chinese leadership which has been extremely cautious about expressing an opinion, let alone flexing its muscles.

Costa Rica is not afraid to go before any international body.

But I would say if the Security Council is only relevant if it agrees with the United States, then we have come a long way in a direction that I do not like very much.

Every government is in some respects a problem for every other government.

Those who say that America has to dominate the world, and that you either have to control everything or go home, don't understand the way power is projected.

Governments can expect to act multilaterally or unilaterally—but not have it both ways at the same time.

Although no one likes a hegemon, America will be a better hegemon than others would be.

It’s not a dictatorship in the United States. But it is dictatorial to the rest of the world. Who’s going to say no?

The time has come to recognize that the U.S. will continue to exercise unprecedented power in a world where international rules are still unreliable and where security and advancing of the free democratic order still depend significantly on the possession and use of military might.

Power is the true reserve currency in international affairs.

We have to really get used to the fact that there is more than one center in the world politics, that the unipolar world never succeeded, that there are more growing, emerging, economic, financial powers…

Under the George W. Bush Administration…, the United States was generally seen as having the capacity and resolve, to pursue its own agenda in complete disregard of other states’ preferences.

The rules that organizations such as the United Nations rely on were not written by the majority of the world’s people, who have long seen powerful states declare exceptions for themselves. Newly powerful states will challenge this system --

The U. S. is not the Boss, not the Boss any longer.

America has to act. But, when America acts, other nations accuse us of being 'hegemonistic', of engaging in 'unilateralism', of behaving as if we're the only nation on earth that counts. We are.

The United States can only lead a world that's prepared to follow.