"This legislation confronts the human truth that the need for clean water knows no borders, and proper management and intervention can be a currency for peace and international cooperation"
About this Quote
"Knows no borders" is both literal and strategic. Watersheds and aquifers ignore customs checkpoints, yes, but Frist is also signaling a post-9/11 worldview in which instability is assumed to spill across lines on a map. Clean water becomes a preemptive security measure: reduce scarcity, reduce the conditions that make conflict easier to ignite and extremism easier to recruit into. This is the quiet subtext of many early-2000s development arguments, especially from U.S. politicians trying to sell foreign assistance to skeptical voters.
The sharpest move is the economic metaphor: "currency for peace". It recasts humanitarian infrastructure as transactional and tradable, something nations can "spend" to build trust. That language is appealing in Washington because it promises measurable returns: fund systems, create interdependence, lower the temperature. It also reveals a technocratic confidence that "proper management and intervention" can tame political realities. The sentence sells optimism with a realist edge: water will be needed anyway, so make its delivery a platform for bargaining instead of a trigger for war.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Frist, Bill. (2026, January 17). This legislation confronts the human truth that the need for clean water knows no borders, and proper management and intervention can be a currency for peace and international cooperation. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-legislation-confronts-the-human-truth-that-46241/
Chicago Style
Frist, Bill. "This legislation confronts the human truth that the need for clean water knows no borders, and proper management and intervention can be a currency for peace and international cooperation." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-legislation-confronts-the-human-truth-that-46241/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"This legislation confronts the human truth that the need for clean water knows no borders, and proper management and intervention can be a currency for peace and international cooperation." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-legislation-confronts-the-human-truth-that-46241/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.



