Richard N. Haass Quotes

We have hopes that we can see rational American presidents; fair, obey the international law, deal with other countries according to mutual respect, parity, etc., but we all know that this is only wishful thinking and fantasy.

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.

If you didn't know better, you might have thought in 2003 and 2004 that U.S. government strategy was being set by people trying to make enemies rather than friends in the Arab-Islamic world. And if you didn't know better, you might think that the Chinese government's approach to the Olympics is being set by people trying to make the country look bad.

Our concern for human rights comes to the fore when there are gross violations of human decencies. Then other countries, including China, must recognize that this affects the American attitude towards their country. But towards what precise institutions will it evolve? I think we ought to leave something to history.

If there were any in China and Russia in this connection, though we both made some compromises. But these were compromises between friendly countries. I think it is almost impossible to achieve such compromise in other ways.

I think that Hillary Clinton has an appreciation that American power needs to be put in the service of American values, which is an American tradition and a pretty good one, and I think she was willing to do that.

Personally, I think that Hillary was one of the worst, if not the worst, I mean if you look at the record, secretary of States ever, ever in this country. I think that's the bigger problem that she's got. I don't think Benghazi is as big a problem for her as her past and what's happened. The world blew up around her.

Think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.

I do think Russian foreign policy is very savvy. There's a need for great caution because the Russians are able to discreetly blackmail countries.

I think it is a very natural tendency for the nations to increase their influence in the international space, as they pursue their international relations with different countries.

The great divide in American foreign policy thinking is between those who believe in paper and those who believe in power.

I think this country and the world would be far better off if the US is not an outlaw state.

If European countries want to cater to U.S. foreign policy interests, I don't think that they stand to gain anything.

I think [Donald Trump] is now talking about engaging in countries on a bilateral basis.

I think Donald Trump needs to be very clear to Vladimir Putin. Let's try to discover areas we can work together. That's fine. We're two a world power. They're a great power arguably. But at the same time we're not going to give any ground. We have to defend our NATO allies.

The lessons are, unfortunately, that a small weak country that is facing an extremely hostile and very violent superpower will not make much progress unless there's a strong solidarity movement within the superpower that will restrain its actions. With more support within the United States, I think the Haitian efforts could have succeeded.

Putin is going to be considering the United States his number one enemy no matter who our president is - and no matter who's elected, that isn't going to change. I think Putin is loving the media saying he's got all this power, 'cause they're a Third World country outside of their military.

For my generation the relationship with Europe was the central point of American foreign policy. Even during my time in government there was disagreement, sometimes very strong disagreement. But they were all like arguments within a family. I am not sure if the generation which doesn't have these experiences has the same view of things.

Russia is a difficult country to deal with, but I think that American policy on Russia has been foolish in the extreme.

America looks to have a great relationship with all countries, ideally. That won't necessarily happen, unfortunately probably won't happen with many countries.

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.

I wouldn't rule out the possibility of Muslim or at least Arab countries developing some form of organization comparable to the European Union. I don't think that's very likely, but it conceivably could happen.

Americans hack everyone everywhere. We like to make a distinction between us and the others. But we are in almost every country in the world. We are not at war with these countries.

If you study the behavior or the attitude of Syria, Iran, and U.S., you understand that these three countries can't come to terms with each other.

If you were following the [Barack] Obama campaign back then, closely, you could see it had become very close to banking interests. So I think you can't properly understand Hillary Clinton's foreign policy without understanding Saudi Arabia.