Chuck Hagel Quotes

American presence is, you know, the major cause of balance of power and the stability in this region.

Foreign policy is about choosing from nasty options.

The potential for regional conflict in the absence of an internationally active America is real.

Western States keep playing with, and around, Russia.

Great wars can only be fought by great powers.

Iran is part of the problem, not the solution. And the Russian government is ignoring reality.

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

When two giants meet with each other, when there is too little room for them on the world's surface, they try to measure their strength in order to decide by war the debatable question of hegemony.

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.

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

War is but an instrument of international policy.

There will no longer be need for spheres of influence, for alliances, balances of power ...

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

Today we will find most nations to be both our partners and our adversaries—sometimes simultaneously.

There are two things that are very expensive in international relations: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail

So much of our foreign policy is based on other people’s weakness.

When a rising power confronts a ruling power, bad things usually happen.... This is what happens when an extablished entity faces an upstart.... To avoid a disasterous clash like war, both parties have to make an adjustment, but the ruling power has to make more painful adjustments.

I believe some of the tensions the U.S. has had with Russia and that the Europeans have had with Russia... China is taking advantage of some of those dealings.

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.

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

President Nixon was a pragmatic strategist. He would engage, not contain, China, but he would also quietly set pieces into place for a fallback position should China not play according to the rules as a good global citizen.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and China are more likely to view each other as competitors if not adversaries. But the die has not been cast. The best possible outcome is a new understanding that when they cannot cooperate, they will coexist and allow all countries in the Pacific to grow and thrive.

If you treat China like a foe, surely she will become one.

I'm sure it is, I'm not for any kind of war, we've been engaged in several wars since the second world war and we lost in Korea, we lost in Vietnam, they are political wars, they have nothing to do with any real threat, nor does this one.

For the Kremlin, it is more feasible to preserve its great-power status in cooperation with the United States than in confrontation.