We Used To Have Just One Criterion

No One, No Single Center, Can Today Command The World. No Single Group Of Countries Can Do It. Under The Current U.s. President, I Don't Think We Can Fundamentally Change The Situation As It Is Developing Now. It Is Dangerous. The World Is Experiencing A Period Of Growing Global Disarray.

We Could Still Have Continued The Arms Race, But The Arms Race Was Pointless, And It Was Another Reason We Decided To Start Perestroika. It Was Senseless To Continue To Accumulate Weapons. We Had Enough Weapons To Destroy Life On Earth 1,000 Times, And Therefore It Was Very Clear To Us That The Arms Race Could Spiral Out Of Control. A Conflict Could Have Started, As Both The Americans And The Soviets Realized, Not Out Of A Wrong Political Decision But Because Of A Failure In The Command-and-control Systems.

We Desperately Need To Recognise That We Are The Guests, Not The Masters, Of Nature And Adopt A New Paradigm For Development, Based On The Costs And Benefits To All People, And Bound By The Limits Of Nature Herself Rather Than The Limits Of Technology And Consumerism.

America Must Be The Teacher Of Democracy, Not The Advertiser Of The Consumer Society. It Is Unrealistic For The Rest Of The World To Reach The American Living Standard.

Sometimes Its Difficult To Accept, To Recognise Ones Own Mistakes, But One Must Do It. I Was Guilty Of Overconfidence And Arrogance, And I Was Punished For That.