Sergei Lavrov Quotes

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

A new multipolar world has brought more uncertainty into international affairs.

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.

Power is the true reserve currency in international affairs.

It looks like the so-called "winners" of the Cold War are determined to have it all, and reshape the world into a place that could better serve their interests alone.

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

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

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

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

Is the balance of power a fixed and unalterable standard? Or is it not a standard perpetually varying, as civilization advances, and as new nations spring up, and take their place among established political communities?

Russia and China completely disagree with the international order that was established after World War II, and they're trying to take it apart right before our eyes.

In the long march of history, at least two poles of attraction and antagonism have been the norm in world politics. Rarely has only one nation carried the burden of leadership. The unipolar world of the 21st century, dominated for the past two decades by the United States, is a historical anomaly.

The U.S. might enjoy overwhelming military advantage, but its relative economic power, which in the long run is almost invariably decisive, is in decline. The interregnum after the Cold War, far from being the prelude to a new American age, was bearing the signs of what is now very visible: the emergence of a multipolar world.

The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come.

American influence is not what it used to be.

Americans tend to see U.S. primacy as beneficial to both their country and the rest of the world.

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?

Unilateralism will lead to the decline of American Power.

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

This is not our choice but this is the law of the politics. You always reciprocate. Positively, negatively, but this is something which you cannot change. It was not invented by us. It is the law of international relations.

A superpower does not have to be the bully on the block.

The moment it became in the interests of one or the other of the Great Powers to alter the status quo, none of these treaty structures ever stood in the way of such alteration.

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.

Most of the conversation about how geopolitics is changing in the 21st century focuses on the shift from west to east and on how we're moving from the bipolar power equation of the Cold War to a new bipolar relationship, that of the U.S. and China, that determines the mood music for everyone else.

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.