Richard V. Allen Quotes

I served as a Russian policy officer in the U.S. Navy and worked to implement our nuclear agreements with the Russian Federation.

In 2012, when Mitt Romney named Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, Democrats scoffed and accused Republicans of trying to ignite a new Cold War.

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.

It was simply impossible to support Carter for reelection in 1980 and easy for me to support Reagan. The Reagan campaign was happy to have Democratic support, and the Reagan administration was happy to have Democrats in it; they took the view that, after all, Reagan himself had been a Democrat, so it was not a strike against you.

Many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview.

As a general rule of thumb, Democrats do better in national elections when the year's defining issue is economic fairness, and Republicans do better when the defining issue is national security.

Refusing to lift sanctions and adopting tougher rhetoric toward Iran would not be partisan issues. Plenty of Democrats think that those actions are both good politics and good policy.

So with the end of the Cold War, it became increasingly obvious that there was no basis upon which any decision was being made, not in the White House, and certainly because of that, not in the Congress.

For 50 years, the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of being soft on national security.

Carter's hopes died when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and he ended up having to reverse policy and launch the military buildup that Reagan continued. Mr. Obama would be forced back into a war on terror if terrorist groups pull off enough damaging or frightening attacks to force this issue to the fore.

George W. Bush has much to evaluate: he has presided over the most sweeping redesign of U.S. grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Ronald Reagan plays with fire! He sees the world like the theater.

When it became clear that they [the Chinese Communists] were going to take power, … the American officials in China were of different minds: there were some who felt that Chiang should be supported to the last ditch, and there were others who felt that Chiang had served his purpose, he could not rule effectively, the communists would win anyway, and that therefore there had to be established a working relationship with the communists.

Democrats hate America being a world power because world power gives power to the nation instead of to Democrats.

We need a foreign policy that is both tough... and smart. The good news? That is the historic legacy of the Democratic Party.

I was a policy office in my final tour in the Navy, a Russian policy officer, and we were always thinking about our interactions and how they would affect the country 10, 20 years from now.

When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.

No one wants to friend or follow covert info about Pakistan's nuclear policy.

Nixon was an awful president in many ways, including in some of his foreign-policy choices. But he left no doubt that foreign policy and America's leadership in the world outside its borders was of paramount importance to him.

During the election campaign of 2000, it was generally thought that then-governor Bush didn't know much about foreign policy or national security affairs, and that Colin Powell would lead on that front, while the president's main concern would be domestic.

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.

Democrats always assure us that deterrence will work, but when the time comes to deter, they're against it.

Republicans always try to paint Democrats as weak on defense. This time, they can't. After all, Mitt Romney's idea of an overseas accomplishment is sending U.S. jobs there.

Dean Acheson was one of the very best and brightest of the men who ever came to Washington.

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