Bill Bradley Quotes

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

Foreign Policy has to be less foreign.

You do not build a foreign policy based on one man.

International policy does not aim at exploiting local, specific conditions to widen zones of influence and create difficulties for another country. The goal of international policy is to insure universal fulfillment of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" and to prevent a sharpening of international tensions and a strengthening of militarist and nationalist tendencies.

People think that it only takes an American decision to solve this or that problem [in foreign affairs].

Without American leadership at the U.N., countries just continue to talk and socialize and spend taxpayer dollars.

Diplomacy can and will matter; little is inevitable in international relations.

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.

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

It is one thing to be against unilateralism and against nonhumanitarian interventionism - but it is quite another thing to be against humanitarian interventionism.

I very much hope that the United States will finally... realise that they can no longer act as the prosecutor, the judge, and the executioner in every part of the world and that they need to cooperate to resolve issues.

We have actively sought and are actively seeking to make the United Nations an effective instrument of international cooperation.

... assertive multilateralism.

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

It is simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states, however powerful. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation.

The mobilization of world opinion and methods of negotiation should be developed and used by every nation in order to strengthen the United Nations. Then if we are forced into war, it will be because there has been no way to prevent it through negotiation and the mobilization of world opinion. In which case we should have the voluntary support of many nations, which is far better than the decision of one nation alone, or even of a few nations.

I don’t think that we should ever apply our military power unilaterally…. If we cannot persuade like-minded, friendly nations of the wisdom of our policy, then maybe we should rethink the policy.

I think it also important that the policies of the great nations be made simple and clear, so that the chance of misunderstanding is minimized.

Never for a moment, have the responsible and instructed statesmen in charge of the foreign affairs of the United States failed to consider themselves bound to insist upon this policy .... Almost every President and Secretary of State has re-stated the doctrine with vigor and emphasis in the discussion of the diplomatic affairs of his day.

History asks of us that we never act unilaterally, never alone, but only within the alliances of NATO, the United Nations and the European Union as it is clearly specified in international law

I believe mutual respect for one another and cooperation should be the basis for relationships with foreign nations.

The U.N. was created for people.

When Barack Obama was running for president, he committed to leading the United Nations and other countries towards a common global goal. Obama believed that he could speak to allies and dictators directly and charm them into seeing the error of their ways.

It's important that all around the globe that the United States is pursuing the most effective foreign policy possible.

It's better to get along with Russia than not.