Cordell Hull Quotes

The day is coming when no single nation, however powerful, can undertake by itself to keep the peace outside its borders.

America should not play a solitary role with respect either to security or to reform.

There is, and there will be, an increasing demand for a principled global security provider, for a superpower that believes in multilateralism and cooperation.

The international rules-based order in the wake of World War II is the order that has ensured prosperity and security now for 75 years. I'm fully committed to that.

My vision of a 'new world order' foresees a United Nations with a revitalized peacekeeping function.

My main concern is with the world order

There was an implicit conviction that the UN would be stronger than the sum of its constituent member-states.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

I talked about the need for American leadership, I talked about the importance of the United States to a more peaceful world, a world that has been quite turbulent in recent years, and needs a strong American anchor.

In the past, a blow to the international system's strongest power would have been welcomed by its rivals. In the wake of September 11, however, every significant government in the world declared its support for the United States.

For years now, long before I became House majority leader, I have been passionate about foreign affairs because I believe that anyone who leads in Washington must appreciate the significance of America's role in providing for global security and prosperity.

I will do everything in my power to ensure that our United Nations can live up to its name, and be truly united; so that we can live up to the hopes that so many people around the world place in this institution, which is unique in the annals of human history.

Peace and security of our planet must be based on the collective action of all nations, not a few, however powerful they may be.

The United Nations system is still the best instrument for making the world less fragile.

Therefore, every country has to understand that fighting against international terrorism is not for the sake of the United States, but for the sake of themselves, and, to a larger extent, in the name of stability of international relations.

In a shrinking world, the absence of order among nations is becoming less and less tolerable.

The international body must have the institutions and powers it needs to do what it is created to do; in other words it must be boldly and openly set up as a super-state on a level above the national sovereignties, and that, in turn, means that the Member States must have accepted in advance as much limitation and subordination of their particular sovereignties as this superior sovereign power requires.

A world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations... It brings us into very dangerous territory and it could be used and abused by any other country. We need to continue to base our security on multilateralism, and on the Security Council.

…though the American government did much to encourage the organs of the League, the fact that it stood aside, sharing neither the rights nor the duties of the League powers, was a fatal handicap to joint action.

No nation can build a safer, better world alone.

The United Nations’ founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

Nothing can be done about a rogue state unless the great powers stand together … There may be other things that the great powers can compete over, but not over dealing with rogue states and their methods of mass destruction.

U.S. national security interests are best served when the United Nations effectively fulfills this core purpose.

In both world wars, Britain understood that our national sovereignty could only endure if we cooperated with other nations. That our fate is inexorably bound with that of our neighbours.