Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

With the decline of America's global preeminence, weaker countries will be more susceptible to the assertive influence of major regional powers.

The rapid rise of the People's Republic of China as a military and economic power is challenging the status quo.

It is neither feasible nor desirable for Europe to establish itself as a geopolitical equal or competitor of the U.S.

Historically when there is a rising power like China, it has usually led to confrontations between the rising power and the existing dominant powers. And when you have a shift of the center of gravity of world affairs from the Atlantic to the Pacific, then you have an additional element.

There is a growing recognition about China as a power in the ascent, and there is a question out there about what China will do with their new ascension.

Putin wants nothing less than to return Russia to the center of global politics by challenging the primacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.

The United States will remain the most powerful nation on Earth for the next 10, 15 years, but the context in which she holds her power has now radically altered.

The world order needs a major overhaul.

Our servants (weaker nations) are becoming our masters. You have my word: As long as there is life in me, I will spend the rest of my days fighting to restore the lost sovereignty of the United States.

Obviously, what's happening in China right now is crucial, in the party congress, which as someone said has anointed a new emperor of China in President Xi. So there's the rise of China, and their active involvement in the United States internally in our business and financial realms. That certainly bears watching.

I think the Chinese do have visions of being a great power. And I think it's legitimate. And I don't see that that's a danger to us.

We're at a moment when the international system is in a period of change like we haven't seen for several hundred years. In some parts of the world, the nation state, on which the existing international system was based, is either giving up its traditional aspects, like in Europe, or as in the Middle East, where it was never really fully established, it is no longer the defining element. So in those two parts of the world, there is tremendous adjustment in traditional concepts.

We have to get tough with the Russians. They don't know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.

We are living in a world where major states and large geopolitical projects have to prove their competitive edge. It is clear, as well, that with regard to the intensifying American-Chinese confrontation and the inert power of a united Europe, Russia has to make up its mind - because it is losing ground as an independent center of power.

A unipolar world - one with only one power - makes sure that this space almost disappears. In a multipolar world this space multiplies. Therefore, there is nostalgia for a multipolar world.

We've been in a period of relative stability and cooperation since the end of the Cold War among the world's major powers, but that may not always exist. And certainly one could even predict that there will be periods of hostility or tension ahead.

There are some people who think that at some time in the future, China may challenge us for supremacy in the Pacific, and therefore, what do we do today to prevent that? And you, of course, will say that we will try to thwart any economic progress in China. If we engaged in such a policy, we would turn a billion-plus people into nationalist opponents of the United States.

If you think that the people of the Soviet Union have any desire themselves, and moreover, by force, to alter the face of surrounding states, then you are badly mistaken.

Simply put, we have to be smart about how we use our power. Not because we have less of it – indeed, the might of our military, the size of our economy, the influence of our diplomacy, and the creative energy of our people remain unrivaled. No, it's because as the world has changed, so too have the levers of power that can most effectively shape international affairs.

When Russia started to regain some of its strength as an economy and as a state, the West's reaction - perhaps a subconscious one, based on erstwhile fears - was panic.

There is no war on terrorism; it is the great game speeded up. The difference is the rampant nature of the superpower, ensuring infinite dangers for us all.

The US is the most wretchedly villainous state of all times. Anyone aware of global issues can easily imagine how vast the hatred for the United States - a corrupted, swollen, paralysing and suffocating political entity - must be across the Third World - and among the thinking minority of the West too.

The free world has need that its foreign policies should fairly measure the realities of the world in which we live. There are certain principles to which we hold: the sanctity of treaties, good faith between nations, the interdependence of peoples from which no country, however powerful, can altogether escape.

China should bury head to work diligently for 10 years and then raise head to face Japan.

The emergence of India as a major global power is an idea whose time has come. This is a legitimate ambition for China. This is a legitimate ambition for India. And the challenge for the humanity is to evolve a world system in which the legitimate ambitions of both our countries can find constructive expression without threatening anybody else.