Robert Kagan Quotes

Foreign policy is a little bit like a guy who goes to Las Vegas. If you win too much, then you eventually bet the mortgage. You start to think you are infallible.

Our country today is at a stage in our foreign policy similar to that crucial point in our nation's early history when our Constitution was produced in Philadelphia.

If I were to look at foreign policy, I would say John McCain has been wrong on just about everything over the last four decades.

When it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.

I think Barack Obama's foreign policy will be regarded more failure than success.

Every damn President since I can remember has been so in love with foreign policy that they're just like a schoolboy with a new girl.

Foreign policy is about US national security, it is definitely not non-intervention. It is definitely not isolationist. That's where people want to hear what they want to hear and not listen to what Donald Trump says. It is about national security for the United States, and that's fine.

This is the problem with foreign policy - talking about foreign policy in a political context. Politics is binary. People win and lose elections. Legislation passes or doesn't pass. And in foreign policy often what you're doing is nuance and you're trying to prevent something worse from happening. It doesn't translate well into a political environment.

The United States may have to abandon its policy of avoiding entangling alliances.

I think that America's recovery of a global strategic view is an absolutely essential element of our foreign policy.

Americans in general, I think, don't understand the weight and gravity of foreign policy and how to engage the world at large.

Their foreign policy is so disjointed, confusing, and chaotic that, really, people need to reexamine those who want to be involved in every war.

Well, the most important thing a president will be is commander-in-chief. And that requires having an understanding of the complex issues on foreign policy. Foreign policy presents us often with hard choices, not black or white choices.

No secretary of state has been more wrong more often and in more places that Hillary Clinton. Her decision spread death, destruction, and terrorism everywhere she touched.

In the wake of Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, where she was the architect of the Obama administration's foreign policy, we see entire portions of the world, particularly the wider Middle East, literally spinning out of control.

International relations bears more than a slight resemblance to the mafia.

Foreign policy is now a huge field. It isn't just people who are studying political science. There are so many aspects to it in terms of understanding hard science for people who are studying climate change, or people who are interested in health policy or food security, or people who care about education.

I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy.

I think the foreign policy is really not Donald Trump administration concern. Like the Syria strike. I mean, it meant almost nothing. They hit an empty air base. Within a day, it was functioning again. Planes were flying off it. It was for a domestic show, you know - show what a tough guy I am; I'm not Barack Obama.

I travel a lot on foreign policy, as you know. I'm in Europe a lot. I travelled over a million miles as vice president. They didn't do stimulus. Look where they are. Come on. I mean, this is like, I just get so frustrated. Like come on.

One of the things that I heard for years and years, never drive Russia and China together. And Obama has done that.

Foreign policy is conducted for the convenience and enjoyment of people in Washington.

A number of foreign policy experts distanced themselves from Donald Trump, not Michael Flynn.

I think I've done more right than wrong on foreign policy. I've criticized the president for being weak and indecisive. I've been a problem solver in Washington and I think I've got something to offer the party and nation.

I think, clearly, we got to work closely with China to resolve the serious problems we have, and I worry about Putin and his military adventurism in the Crimea and the Ukraine.