Alexander Haig Quotes

The media has become a major player in the conduct of diplomacy.

No peace will arrive unless the U.S. or Pakistan want it.

President-elect Trump has said he would like to improve relations with Russia. His choice for defense secretary views Russia as America's number one threat.

Everybody has always underrated the Russians. They keep their own secrets alike from foe and friends.

The best way to help Israel deal with Iran's growing nuclear capacity is to help the people of Syria overthrow the regime of Bashar Assad.

If Donald Trump thinks that just by being unpredictable that somehow he can have an impact, but not necessarily commit himself to certain things, that's not the way it is going to be read in foreign capitals. Foreign governments are going to take these things very literally and very directly.

There is a homely old adage which runs: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." If the American nation will speak softly, and yet build and keep at a pitch of the highest training a thoroughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far.

No matter the good news anywhere else, these nuke-hungry rogue states will provide grounds for bad-mouthing Bush foreign policy.

The point is that in any country, including the United States, may be in the United States even more often than in any other country, foreign policy is used for internal political struggle.

I do think that it's really important for leaders of countries to be very clear and careful in the statements they make because their words are weighed extremely carefully by other countries, and you have to create a continuity of seriousness and of credibility in order to be able to be taken seriously and get things done.

Together they [President Nixon and Secretary Kissinger] pursued ends that frequently had a tenuous link with reality, using means that were not merely disproportionate but counterproductive and untrue to those values they were meant to defend. In fact neither man demonstrated much faith in those values.

In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy.

Ronald Reagan is going to go into negotiations with [Vladimir] Putin from a position of strength. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama gave up the game on day one when they reset the relationship with Russia and they gave up the nuclear defense of Poland and the Czech Republic.

A statesman who shakes the fruit trees of his neighbors - to dislodge the worms.

I think what we're seeing is that they're testing each other. Russia is testing us, we're testing them, it's part of just, you know, the new president Donald Trump coming in and President Vladimir Putin having to figure out his place.

No, [the U.S.] has made it clear that we consider a peaceful resolution an essential aspect of American foreign policy. This I believe to be a situation understood by China, but again, it is important to not sound too truculent. Taking on a billion-plus Chinese is not an enterprise which one should enter lightly.

The one thing that I remember from all of my intelligence briefings and my dealings with the Russians is that when you deal with the Russians, you have to deal with them from strength, not from weakness.

What we (U.S.) have done, is undertaken diplomacy through public assertions that tend to alienate everyone.

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.

I would have said, before the World Trade Center events, that he would try to get a normal relationship with China - making clear to China what the limits are of what America can accept, but also showing understanding for some of Chinese necessities. I thought he was moving towards the position that I have more or less advocated.

Surely the right course is to test the Russians, not the bombs.

One might have thought that the Cold War's conclusion would have convinced the Left that appeasement of dictators is not profitable.

We need a dramatically expanded use of statecraft.

If you're gonna sit there and be worried about what Donald Trump would do with nuclear weapons, you've got to know that it's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who have made it possible for Iran to nuke up, and that's in nobody's best interests. That's not in the best interests of our ally, Israel. It's not in the best interests of ourselves.

The US wished things to turn out as they did, and worked to bring this about. The department of state desired that the UN prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. This task was given to me, and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success.