Kishore Mahbubani Quotes

Existing great powers are always nervous when there is a new emerging power

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

Gifts [concessions] to rising powers are rarely reciprocated. Mostly, they are just pocketed.

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

Both Russia and the United States are struggling to define their proper roles in the world.

To balance China, the democracies will need new friends - and India with its fast-growing economy, youthful population, and democratic politics seems the obvious candidate.

The world is shifting from a hegemonic era, where the United States dominated alone, to a multipolar system.

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.

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.

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.

It is the evident destiny of the British and Americans, and of course the Russians to rule the world.

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.

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

There will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, balances of power ...

Europe is perhaps the first example in history of a non-dominant world power.

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 only things that matter in the world are Japan and China, Russia and Europe. Latin America doesn’t matter…. And … there’s nothing you can do about the Middle East.

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.

No great power will allow itself to be strangulated.

History teaches that the rise of new great powers often triggers major global conflict.

We have to really get used to the fact that there is more than one center in the world politics, that the unipolar world never succeeded, that there are more growing, emerging, economic, financial powers…

As the two biggest global powers indulge their neuroses, the rest of the world is getting anxious.

Small countries such as Belgium would be well-advised to rally to the side of the strong if the wish to retain their independence.

The U. S. is not the Boss, not the Boss any longer.