David Lloyd George Quotes

What really matters for great powers is power—national economic and military strength—and that speaks loudly and clearly for itself.

American power confers benefits on most inhabitants of the planet, even on many who dislike it and some who actively oppose it, because the United States plays a major, constructive, and historically unprecedented role in the world.

Its easy for a country to talk about global affairs but unless you can do something about it, you are not a player.

Although she [America] might have had pressing provocations, yet she ought to have looked to this country as the guardian power to which she was indebted not only for her comforts, not only for her rank in the scale of civilization but for her very existence.

There is no need to fear Russia's actions, they are not aggressive... They are aimed at maintaining balance in the world order, and are extremely important for maintaining peace and security globally.

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

Eurasia is home to most of the world's politically assertive and dynamic states.

There is not much danger of the smaller nations if the big nations will behave.

Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.

The U.S. has since the end of World War II had an answer - we stand for free peoples and free markets, we are willing to support and defend them - we will sustain a balance of power that favors freedom.

... the notion that the greater the preparation for war the smaller the probability of its occurrence might well appear a reductio ad absurdum of militarism, implying, as it does, that the only way to secure an eternal world peace is to concentrate the entire energy of all nations upon the art of war ...

The British can not alone act as the policemen of the world.

However much we may sympathize with a small nation confronted by a big and powerful neighbor, we cannot in all circumstances undertake to involve the whole British Empire in a war simply on her account. If we have to fight it must be on larger issues than that.

If a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honor is no party question. The security of our great international trade is no party question; the peace of the world is much more likely to be secured if all nations realize fairly what the conditions of peace must be

Those who say that America has to dominate the world, and that you either have to control everything or go home, don't understand the way power is projected.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

[Arguing against isolationism:] This country is not looking for prestige. It has all it can use. It is not looking for power. It has, likewise, all that it knows how to use .... [But] are we willing to live behind a Maginot Line or a Great Wall of China here on the North American continent, and trade and travel in the rest of the world only as permitted by a stronger power than we are?

As long as we can outproduce the world, can control the sea and can strike inland with the atomic bomb, we can assume certain risks otherwise unacceptable in an effort to restore world trade, to restore the balance of power —military power—and to eliminate some of the conditions which breed war.

We especially ought to pray that the powers of Europe be so poised and counterpoised among themselves that their own security may require the presence of all their forces at home leaving the other parts of the world in undisturbed tranquility.

We shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power, but every other nation will think we shall abuse it.

… to me, I confess, they are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for domination of the world.

The overall or political objective is to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and British Empire.

Isn’t it clear that the British government has no policy of our own in Iraq and that we are totally dependent on the policy of the United States?

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.