Mark Esper Quotes

The United Nations, and the way we approach collective security, must be adapted to changing circumstances. The United Nations is our prime instrument for effective multilateral solutions and a rule-based international order.

Since World War II, the rules-based international order created and maintained by the United States has benefited peoples around the globe and none more so than Americans here at home.

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

If the U.N. is ineffective, the whole concept of multilateralism will collapse.

The United States, working closely with the United Kingdom and others, established the liberal world order in the wake of World War II. The goal was to ensure that the conditions that had led to two world wars in 30 years would never again arise.

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

We were instrumental in creating the United Nations and the World Bank, and now we threaten their health.

Only by carrying forward such a program with common determination and united national support, can we expect, in the long range of the future, to avoid becoming victims of destructive forces of international anarchy which in the absence of organized international relations will rule the world. By the procedure of cooperation with other nations likewise intent upon security, we can and will remain masters of our own fate.

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.

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

From Nato to the U.N. and the E.U., the generation that lived through the first half of the 20th century knew they needed to create a new world order. An order with rules and institutions which, however imperfect, could act both as constraints on individual countries going rogue and as catalysts for co-operation for mutual benefit.

Britain is committed to peace and security, and a leading supporter of the international rules-based system.

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

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.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

We need to use the United Nations Security Council and believe that preserving law and order in today's complex and turbulent world is one of the few ways to keep international relations from sliding into chaos. The law is still the law, and we must follow it whether we like it or not.

In the euphoria after the Cold War, there was a misplaced notion that the UN could solve every problem anywhere.

Probably the most useful thing I can do as secretary of state is to assist the president in adapting and renewing the transnational institutions that were created after World War II.

The purpose of the United Nations should be to protect the essential sovereignty of nations, large and small.

Let us face it, the U.N. has failed. It has failed in its mission to promote world peace.

The nations must be organized internationally and induced to enter into partnership, subordinating in some measure national sovereignty to worldwide institutions and obligations.

It is a commonplace that the League of Nations is not yet-what its most enthusiastic protagonists intended it to be.

Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.

The United Nations remains our most important global actor. These days we are continuously reminded of the enormous responsibility of the Security Council to uphold international peace and stability.