“These are all 'threats without borders' — where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.”

Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: A recent United Nations High-Level Panel identified five categories of threats that we face:
1. Poverty, Infectious Disease, and Environmental Degradation;
2. Armed Conflict — both within and among states;
3. Organized Crime;
4. Terrorism; and
5. Weapons of Mass Destruction.
These are all 'threats without borders' — where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We cannot respond to these threats by building more walls, developing bigger weapons, or dispatching more troops. Quite to the contrary. By their very nature, these security threats require primarily multinational cooperation.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "These are all 'threats without borders' — where traditional notions of national security have become obsolete. We canno…" by Mohamed ElBaradei?
Mohamed ElBaradei photo
Mohamed ElBaradei 42
Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General … 1942

Related quotes

Luciana Borio photo

“The threat of pandemic flu is the number one health security concern, are we ready to respond? I fear the answer is no.”

Luciana Borio American physician and public health administrator

At a symposium at Emory University in Atlanta in 2018, marking the 100th anniversary of 1918 flu pandemic. As quoted in Contrary to Trump’s Claim, A Pandemic Was Widely Expected at Some Point https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/contrary-to-trumps-claim-a-pandemic-was-widely-expected-at-some-point/ (March 20, 2020) by Rem Rieder, FactCheck.org.

Andrei Sakharov photo

“The threat of hunger cannot be eliminated without the assistance of the developed countries, and this requires significant changes in their foreign and domestic policies.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom (1968), Dangers, Hunger and Overpopulation (and the Psychology of Racism)

Tony Blair photo

“For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hansard http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmhansrd/vo020410/debtext/20410-04.htm, House of Commons 6th series, vol. 383, col. 23.
House of Commons statement on discussions with President Bush over the Middle East, 10 April 2002.
2000s

Barack Obama photo

“When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans — an avian flu pandemic.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

New York Times Op-Ed "Grounding a Pandemic" (6 June 2005) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/06/opinion/06obama.html?ex=1275710400&en=69f51e47097d5dd9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss by Barack Obama and Richard Lugar
2005

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad photo
Jello Biafra photo

“Our biggest national security threat is the environmental destruction of our planet and the arms race with ourselves.”

Jello Biafra (1958) singer and activist

Address to the US Green Party

“The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security.”

Joseph C. Wilson (1949–2019) American ambassador

What I Didn't Find in Africa (2003)
Context: I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.
But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Douglas MacArthur photo

“Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Speech to the Michigan legislature, in Lansing, Michigan (15 May 1952), published in General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964 (2000) by Edward T. Imparato, p. 206; part of this was also used in a speech in Boston, as quoted in TIME magazine (6 August 1951) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,856843,00.html
Context: Talk of imminent threat to our national security through the application of external force is pure nonsense. Our threat is from the insidious forces working from within which have already so drastically altered the character of our free institutions — those institutions we proudly called the American way of life.

John F. Kennedy photo
Barack Obama photo

Related topics