Pete Hoekstra Quotes

If there is one lesson for U.S. foreign policy from the past 10 years, it is surely that military intervention can seem simple but is in fact a complex affair with the potential for unintended consequences.

Foreign policy works best when force and diplomacy are used together.

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

War is but an instrument of international policy.

The management of a balance of power is a permanent undertaking, not an exertion that has a foreseeable end.

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

There is a middle ground between sitting on our hands and sending in the marines.

History teaches us these lessons for the interveners: leave your prejudices at home, keep your ambitions low, have enough resources to do the job, do not lose the golden hour, make security your first priority, involve the neighbors.

Whether you're dealing with your allies in Europe or you're dealing with a resurgent Russia, whether you're dealing with Iran or North Korea, you have to use the whole panoply of national tools of power to deal with the challenges the world faces.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.

No Western government has ever played the long-term in terms of foreign policy.

We have a model that we're following, and it's the Libya model.

It is one thing to be against unilateralism and against nonhumanitarian interventionism - but it is quite another thing to be against humanitarian interventionism.

The United States has dealt with the Middle East and surrounding regions for many decades in the context of the Cold War.

Intervention continues to be a prominent dimension of the post-cold war world.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you've got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I'm not sure any country, either the United States or I don't hear of anyone else, who's willing to take on that responsibility.

As the U.S., the world is questioning why not end it, and so if, in fact, we were to pull out, the world would definitely question why we did this to begin with. But I still believe the world would call upon us for help if they needed it.

A democracy is severely restricted in its use of armed forces as a weapon of peacetime foreign policy. It cannot manipulate them tactically on any extensive scale for the accomplishment of measures short of war.

Is a military solution the only way to stop nations from doing bad things?

The United States should not frame its policy options in terms of doing nothing or unilaterally sending in the Marines.

The United States will always be a global leader, and we need to actively engage the international community to make sure all citizens of the world live freely and equally under their country's rule of law. We cannot, however, afford to fight other nations' wars interminably or stabilize their regions.

Not every threat to America's national interests can be addressed with military power.

Success in foreign policy, as in carpentry, requires the right tools for the job.

It's important that all around the globe that the United States is pursuing the most effective foreign policy possible.