“We cannot buy or force the respect of other nations. We can only earn it. We can show we understand their problems while working on our own. We can recall that nations are collections of people, not markers on an international game board, and that the measuring stick for our actions must therefore be the effect on people’s lives within the United States and abroad.”
Our Quote of the Week reminds us of the humanity and interconnectedness of our world community and stresses that our policies and actions at home and abroad will dictate whether we are respected internationally.
This week’s quote is from a position paper that was part of Sargent Shriver’s 1976 Presidential platform. Entitled “Toward a Democratic Foreign Policy,” the paper holds many valuable insights for us today. Commenting on what the nature of US foreign policy ought to be, Shriver states:
“We must have a foreign policy that represents what is best in us and in our history. We must be what we say we are. A democratic foreign policy must reflect these values—faith in the people, willingness to sponsor change, and a commitment to openness and constitutional procedure. For America, there can be no other choice.”
Shriver points out that although the world is made up of separate nations, the threats that we face across the world are the same (and they continue to be all too familiar 50 years later): nuclear weapons; pollution; overpopulation; the depletion of natural resources; and infectious diseases. These challenges threaten our very existence and know no borders, so the stakes of sowing discord among nations could not be higher:
"[W]e belong to a still separated but seamless world. We have no right or way of dominion. And we have no means of isolation. Others have nuclear power or potential; other nations are more than equal in some resources and raw materials; other states can poison the air, fish out the oceans, overpopulate the planet, or release unnatural and uncontrollable bacteria. In such a world, the shaping of a common existence is the precondition of a secure existence—and perhaps of any existence at all.”
Sargent Shriver’s vision for US foreign policy continues to be relevant today, and his message feels particularly urgent as we near the end of 2025. We must remember that we share a common existence. We must work together, we must strive to de-escalate conflict wherever it occurs, and we must favor diplomacy over force whenever possible. Whenever we fail to operate in this way, we do so at our own peril.
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