Chris Patten Quotes

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.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations.

I don’t talk to countries that exhibit bad behavior.

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

Never in all the long years of strife and struggle has a parliamentary conduct of international affairs been successful.

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.

I've always been interested in foreign relations. It's my belief that study of history should be our preparation for understanding the present rather than an escape from it.

America needs a president who understands the nature of the world we live in.

As president, I will stand up to the great human rights tests of our time - in China, Russia, and the Middle East. We must send a signal to our allies and adversaries that America is back in the leadership business.

My main concern is with the world order

The Obama administration kind of shows how you can use diplomacy to bring the most important countries together and get the whole world on board.

Obama really does recognize the threats that are out there; I think he understands the world. He understands the role of America in that troubled world.

America looks to have a great relationship with all countries, ideally. That won't necessarily happen, unfortunately probably won't happen with many countries.

I'm a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy.

Turkey has worked alongside its allies from the beginning.

In the United Nations, when China entered, we voted on the same position, and since then we have maintained the same position, that position has not changed.

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.

The utter incompetence of the U.N. is literally incomprehensible.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

As far as the international issues are concerned, the most important thing is the state of the transatlantic relationships, Euro-Atlantic relationships: how to develop them and how to strengthen them further.

Of course the United States and Russia have different interests. Nevertheless, both are strategic partners.

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

Foreign Policy has to be less foreign.

No country can dictate its laws to the world.

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