Richard Holbrooke Quotes

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

Europeans must shed their illusions about what they can accomplish in the world on their own. Loose talk about resurrecting a multi-polar world is just that - loose talk.

World peace is no longer some pie-in-the-sky thing, because no single person or country is going to solve it on their own.

The U.S. cannot go it alone simply when it is convenient.

I don't think Russia is setting this as a goal; I don't think this should be Russia's goal. I think even the United States doesn't need to be a superpower. China doesn't need to be a superpower. It's a different 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?

America cannot meet this century's challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America.

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 United States is necessary for the solution to many problems in the world today. However, we are no longer sufficient..

American foreign policy, for all its shortcomings, has underpinned political stability around the world.

The real danger to Britain is a foreign policy that is isolationist in Europe and therefore weak in the rest of the world.

Peace and security of our planet must be based on the collective action of all nations, not a few, however powerful they may be.

In these days of intimate relations, of economic stress and of intense desire to protect national interests and advance national opportunity, the treatment of questions which, from a legal standpoint, are domestic, often seriously affects international relations. The principle, each nation for itself to the full extent of its powers, is the principle of war, not of peace.

In a shrinking world, the absence of order among nations is becoming less and less tolerable.

Foreign Policy has to be less foreign.

It takes patience to work with allies and to bring out the best in international organizations.

Multilateralism is regarded as somehow un-American, a trick by which foreigners seek to sap the strength and authority of the United States.

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.

Strong nations co-operate to the harmony and wealth of the world. Weak nations are a perpetual cause of disturbances and perils.

Unilateralism will lead to the decline of American Power.

You don’t do foreign policy unilaterally. Foreign policy is a team sport.

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.

America remains the indispensable nation. There are times when America, and only America, can make a difference between war and peace, between freedom and repression.

Political and security realities have reduced the scope of American unilateralism.

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