John Lewis Gaddis Quotes

Great powers reserve the right to police bad actors in their neighborhoods.

If I were remaking the United Nations there would only be one permanent representative—the United States because that’s the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world.

We do not have the God-given right to intervene in any country in which we feel like intervening.

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.

Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda. Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past.

The international community unfortunately did take sides in Libya, and we would never allow the Security Council to authorise anything similar to what happened in Libya.

President Obama's consistent agenda has been to weaken the United States and our allies in pursuit of a more 'balanced' global power structure.

Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.

The era when the United States was the dominant global power is steadily coming to an end, and it must find a way of acknowledging this and framing its ambitions and interests accordingly. Instead of claiming the right to continuing primacy in east Asia, for example, it should seek to share that primacy with China.

Nothing in the constitutions of Western states requires them to get involved in every foreign conflict.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

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 centuries old Westphalian state system has never resolved the tension between the principle of the sovereign equality of states and the idea that great powers enjoy certain privileges and bear special responsibilities.

Having excessive power in the hands of one country meant the fate of the world was too dependent on what happened in that one country.

America rules the world - by force.

There are both things in international law: the principle of territorial integrity and right to self-determination.

Let there be an end to the arrogance of the big powers who miss no opportunity to put the rights of the people in question. Africa's absence from the club of those who have the right to veto is unjust and should be ended.

Whoever wants peace among nations must seek to limit the state and its influence most strictly.

Multi- polarisation has become an inevitable trend in the process of shaping a global political pattern and has been widely welcomed by the international community as it reflects the common interests and aspiration of the overwhelming majority of countries.

We shouldn't discuss the world of tomorrow in terms of becoming a balance to the United States. The real issue is whether the United States will define herself as part of the U.N. system-or not.

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.

But I believe that the DPKO at this time was very much involved with American administration and was acting, taking on consideration the demand or the recommendation of the American administration. American administration was very powerful.

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.

Transferring our sovereignty and decisionmaking power to the WTO, to the United Nations, or any other international body is not in the long-term interests of our people.