Chuck Hagel Quotes

We're not going to spread democracy at the business end of a M16 held by a 23 year old Marine.

Democracy brought to others through the barrel of a gun is not democracy.

Stability is when the U.K. and U.S. invade a country and impose the regime of their choice.

You don't spread democracy through the barrel of a gun.

Regime change cannot be the objective of military action.

Preemption, democracy promoting and nation building have all been sullied by association by association with the War in Iraq.

Let's be clear: Neither Secretary Powell or I opposed the notion of removing Saddam Hussein by force, but we wanted to avoid the war if we could. But if we couldn't, the notion of removing Saddam Hussein from the scene seemed eminently sensible, given that you had, what, 16 or so U.N. Security Council resolutions basically saying the same thing.

But they were going to war anyway and they were going to bully and pressure countries to vote for it.

Governments go to war directly or by proxy without declaring war. Force, or threat of force, are constantly used to dominate other countries.

We remain in Iraq because we know that sometimes liberty needs some nursing before it can grow on its own.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be.

It will no longer be war that is the continuation of politics by other means, it will be what I have dubbed 'the integral accident' that is the continuation of politics by other means.

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.

From the very beginning, the American republic has never shrunk from foreign wars …. There has scarcely been a year since its founding that American soldiers haven’t been overseas … American foreign policy largely consists of doctrines about when and where to intervene in other people’s countries.

Anybody who believes that we can democratize Iran, Iraq and Syria by military force is living in a fantasy world.

There is nothing democratic about war. It’s a straight dictatorship. The use of force to attain an end desired. We the armed forces of the USA have put a government in the position to dictate the peace. We did not come over here to acquire jurisdiction over either the people or their countries. We came to give them back the right to govern themselves.

We are talking about using military force, but we are not talking about war. I think that is an important distinction.

Throughout history states have also used force to reform, restructure, or rebuild the domestic institutions of other countries

If we think it necessary to wage war, we shall do so with or without your consent.

Our country is being bled daily in an effort to create a democracy in a place where it never existed.

Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements…

Is military occupation likely to be the midwife of democracy?

Every war I have ever covered – Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Liberia – withstood all diplomatic efforts to end it until Western military action finally forced a resolution.