Richard N. Haass Quotes

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.

In the Western Hemisphere the adherence of the United States to the Monroe Doctrine may force the United States, however reluctantly, in flagrant cases of such wrong doing or impotence, to the exercise of an international police power.

The predominant yardstick of your government is not human rights but national interests.

The U.S. must differentiate between controversial assertions of power, like those in the South China Sea, and fair reflections of China's growing contribution to the world, such as the new banks.

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.

Since the end of the Cold War, hegemonism has become increasingly unpopular.

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

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

I don't share the view that China and the U.S. need to reach some kind of strategic accommodation to carve up the Asia-Pacific region - that is an arrogant proposition and deeply insulting to other countries in the region, including Japan and potentially also India and Indonesia.

Have not the small Powers reason to fear that they will be victims in a subsequent conflict into which they will be dragged against their will in spite of their policy of indisputable independence and of their firm desire for neutrality? Are they not liable to become the subject of arrangements reached without their having been consulted?

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.

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 Government of the United States is not entitled to affirm as a universal proposition, with reference to a number of independent States for whose conduct it assumes no responsibility, that its interests are necessarily concerned in whatever may befall those States simply because they are situated in the Western Hemisphere.

The thing people forget is that the entire world - or, at least, Europe, U.S., transatlantic, Russia, Soviet Union - that security architecture has been in place since 1945 and has been refined. Already, the U.N. charter that everyone signed is that you can't change borders through use of force or even threat of use of force.

I'm in favour of a multi-polar world. I believe that every country has the right to defend its own interests.

The events in Crimea themselves have nothing to do with what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other regions. In my opinion, when the world becomes unipolar, or when someone tries to make it so, then this one pole has the illusion that all issues can be settled through power. And only when there is a balance of power does the desire to negotiate appears.

The statesmen still say that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations and yet it is not possible any longer not to interfere, even when we do not mean to do so.

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.

American presence is, you know, the major cause of balance of power and the stability in this region.

Everybody pursues their national interests. The only one who gets blamed for it is the United States.

An increasingly multipolar world requires an entirely different kind of U.S. foreign policy: far from being unilateralist, it necessitates a complex form of power-sharing on both a global and regional basis.

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.

I don't believe, in the 21st century, in the balance of power system. This is a European idea of the 19th and 20th centuries.

There will always be nations. The United States will last a long, long time, I believe. France and Germany and Japan, China, other nations, they're going to exist. But they're losing their significance and ability to deal with certain matters.

I don't think Russia is setting this as a goal; I don't think this should be Russia's goal. I think even the United States doesn't need to be a superpower. China doesn't need to be a superpower. It's a different world.