Tim Kaine Quotes

If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.

Our foreign policy needs to support our energy, economic, defense and domestic policies. It all falls within the arch of national interest. There will be windows of opportunity, but they will open and close quickly.

I'm on the Armed Services Committee, which gives me the opportunity to get involved on some of these international issues. My focus is, as you know, on the economic issues and budget issues.

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

On the whole our armed services have been doing pretty well in the way of keeping us defended, but I hope our State Department will remember that it is really the department of achieving peace.

I challenge anybody to say that I wouldn't know how to approach foreign policy because, unlike some of the other people, I at least have a foreign policy philosophy, which is an extension of the Reagan philosophy. Peace through strength, and my philosophy is peace through strength and clarity.

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

I was a member of the Armed Services Committee for 18 years. I spent a big chunk of my life studying national security issues and our role in the world.

I remain committed to a balanced policy, which will protect our national interests both on our eastern border - I mean with Russia - and of course with the European Union.

Let me remind you all that the first task of American foreign policy is to reduce threats to the United States.

In State of the Union addresses, I always look at the foreign policy and military parts first, which are generally pretty minimal.

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.

The American people need to tell their member of Congress that we need a strong defense to protect us and to prevent wars. We can't get away with simply leading from behind and gutting our defenses.

The Defense Department has a great deal of influence on foreign policy, and State has very little impact on defense policy.

There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it.

The Mutual Security Act was intended not to fight a war but to prevent a war.

[America should engage in] Progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense

Moscow believes that using force constitutes strategic defense.

As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am confronted every day with the security concerns and threats to our own nation's safety, as well as threats to the rest of the world.

A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence - rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware.

As a member of the Armed Service Committee and a co-chair of the Democratic National Security Task Force, I will continue to work to keep Americans safe at home and abroad.

When you look at where the Democratic field is going relative to foreign policy, they are increasingly moving away from a policy of pre-emptive self-defense that the president has adopted since September 11.

Foreign policy can mean several things, not only foreign policy in the narrow sense. It can cover foreign policy, relations with the developing world, and enlargement as well.

The National Security Council's real role is to coordinate the various activities of the government of the United States in the furtherance of American foreign policy.