Chuck Hagel Quotes

Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.

Obama's foreign policy is strangely self-centered, focused on himself and the United States rather than on the conduct and needs of the nations the United States allies with, engages with, or must confront.

We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America's friends from her enemies, and recognizes the true threats that we face.

The principles that should guide American foreign policy are simple: the world is safer when America leads, only strength ensures peace and freedom, and America must stand with its allies and challenge its adversaries.

We are a country that has many friends, many allies, when we operate in the world, we operate with friends and allies that's been true for decades and if we wind up going to war in Iraq it will be true in Iraq.

There's no way in the world that the United States does not want to spread democratic ideals, but the first thing we have to do is that which is the interest of our security.

No one can think intelligently on the many complicated problems of American foreign policy unless he decides first what he considers the real purpose and object of that policy…. Fundamentally, I believe the ultimate purpose of our foreign policy must be to protect the liberty of the people of the United States.

U. S. Foreign Policy is usually largely reactive.

Foreign policy should be strategic, not tactical.

There's no sense in using surrogates to pursue United States national interests.

You have an administration which understands America's international responsibilities and interests, but you have a population which is anxious, tired, and doesn't want to bear any burden and pay any price. And that's very difficult for whoever becomes president.

In the aftermath of September 11, it has been made clear to us that our foreign policy can no longer afford to narrowly focus on short-term benefits. For our nation's long-term security, we must be active in promoting American values abroad through our foreign policy.

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.

We have to return to a foreign policy of restraint, one that develops our capabilities and our potential in communities across America, and not become bogged down in unwinnable conflicts that lead to greater resentment of the United States, and that don't advance American interests.

With regards to American foreign policy all across the globe, it is important for us to be operating from positions of strength, and not to just concede that.

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

What you want in foreign policy is clear, well-defined goals.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

A great nation like the United States has many and varied interests, and we need both to do business with tyrants and to engage constantly in multilateral diplomacy.

We have tried to make it clear that the United States is not just an old cow that gives more milk the more it is kicked in the flanks.

I think President Obama has always been a little bit underestimated. Some of the things he's done with foreign policy have been unassailable. Getting us out of Iraq, killing Osama Bin Laden.

Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.

What is the Obama Doctrine? It seems to be one of disengagement, to try to ignore the hot, religious, dry, poor countries from Algeria to Pakistan.

America must continue diplomacy, even as we continue the war, to expand the coalition of the willing to share the burden of war and to share the responsibility and the economic cost of rebuilding Iraq.

Americans assume that we never go to war to sustain our wealth, because war must be understood as a moral enterprise commensurate with our being a democracy.