UN General Assembly
2017

Sovereignty is not a sword but a shield. The United Nations is not a forum for measuring whose sovereignty is bigger, or whose military is better equipped to pursue its narrow, short-term self-interest. We are a community founded instead on the assumption of the sovereign equality of all States, rich and poor, large and small. One nation’s ability to destroy another does not endow it with special rights, but rather profound responsibilities, chief among them restraint. President Theodore Roosevelt’s realpolitik adage of speaking softly while carrying a big stick — whatever its limitations — cannot be replaced by irresponsible, bellicose sabre-rattling that inches us closer to the types of conflict that the Assembly was created to prevent.