William E. Gladstone Quotes

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

Obama's foreign policy is strangely self-centered, focused on himself and the United States rather than on the conduct and needs of the nations the United States allies with, engages with, or must confront.

The natural alliance is between ourselves and the great German Empire.

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

If nationalism were the world's ruling passion, could the British Commonwealth, with its manifold variety of peoples, have been held together?

Even allies don’t share every single interest that you have. That’s a law of nature in the international system. They will tell you most of what you need to know but there may be some things that they don’t tell you that you need to know in order to formulate your policy as wisely as you can.

We have to acknowledge and discuss with citizens that Germany needs to take on more responsibility. One of the questions is, 'Can we keep a functioning international order?'

Our alliances and partnerships are not directed against any nation.

The US wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The department of state desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.

Are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be a world power? In other words, not just a trading bloc but a political entity. Do we realise that our nation states, taken individually, would find it far more difficult to assert their existence and their identity on the world stage.

We had 10 years after the Cold War to build a new world order and yet we squandered them. The United States cannot tolerate anyone acting independently. Every US president has to have a war.

I believe that Israel is one of our most important friends in the world.

The UN may not be very effective but I am a fan of the idea of the United Nations. I have been there, I know the problems. To parody Winston Churchill: It is the worst system, except we don't have any other.

I just want everybody to understand and fully know that the United States of America stands behind Japan, its great ally, 100 percent.

My main concern is with the world order

How I learned to love the New World Order.

Canada's ruling circles seek to ally themselves more closely with American imperialism without giving up the economic advantages of membership in the British Empire.

...the current Human Rights Commission's working group is made up of the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No, I'm not making that up.

A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas.

I believe that the G20 should not interfere [foreign policy], because there are other platforms for that.

The link between domestic policy and international affairs is essential: We cannot say we care about domestic issues and we leave international politics, and the opposite is wrong as well. Both are connected and should be addressed together.

In the past, Germany could rely on the French, the British and, especially, the Americans, to assert our interests in the world. We have always criticized the U.S. for being the global police, and it was often appropriate to do so. But we are now seeing what happens when the U.S. pulls back. If the U.S. leaves the room, other powers immediately walk in. In Syria, it's Russia and Iran. In trade policy, it's China. These examples show that, ultimately, we are no longer achieving either - neither the dissemination of our European values nor the advancement of our interests.

The United States was proud to stand with the people of Germany as this nation and this continent reunited and rebuilt and reached for a better future.

I would have set out very quickly the relationship with Europe.

Trump is a partner for us who cannot be easily categorized. Putting it in the noblest way possible, his understanding of politics is a little different from ours here in Europe. The way he acts forces us Europeans to take on a new responsibility. We are not standing with our backs up against the wall, but, to put it as pithily as the German chancellor has: We can no longer rely on the U.S. the way we could in the past.