Charles E. Bohlen Quotes

There is no such thing as an expert on Russia. There are only people with varying degrees of ignorance.

The remarkable failure in our time of political and military prediction. It is curious to reflect that out of al the ‘experts’ of all the schools, there was not a single one who was able to foresee so likely an event as the Russo-German Pact of 1939

With regards to Trump's treatment of Putin and Russia, national security experts and journalists have been citing the fact pattern and saying there's something strange going on.

The Russian empire under czars and commissars has been hard to deal with for other countries.

The new [Donald Trump] administration may not want the benefit of [Dan Fried] expertise in terms of figuring out what Russia is up to with us right now but I do. I mean, we can all benefit from it as a country as we figure out what's going on right now with this presidency and with Russia in particular.

[Dan fried] is the department's foremost Russia expert and he, too, is now leaving at a time when arguably the State Department needs it most, the State Department will not have the benefit of his insight going forward.

I've stood up to Russia. I've taken on Putin and others, and I would do that as president.

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

I don't know that Donald Trump is anything more to Putin than what Lenin called a poleznye durak, a useful idiot.

Russia has a strategy of creating the conditions that give rise to corruption, then exploiting that corruption to its own benefit.

I don't like Assad at all, but Assad is killing ISIS. Russia is killing ISIS. And Iran is killing ISIS. And those three have now lined up because of our weak foreign policy.

I want to try to become friends with Russia.

In terms of my conversations with [Vladimir] Putin, these are conversations that took place before the election. As I indicated, there has been very clear proof that they have engaged in cyber attacks. This isn't new. It's not unique to Russia. There are a number of states where we've seen low-level cyber attacks and industrial espionage and, you know, other behavior that we think should be out of bounds.

What you have in President Trump is someone who is willing to, and is, in fact, engaging the world, including Russia, and saying, where can we find common interests that will advance the security of the American people, the peace and prosperity of the world? And he is determined to come at that in a new and renewed way.

Internal reform in Russia would require a better relationship with the West.

Obviously I have concerns, right, about national security in terms of Russia, and China, and North Korea, and obviously, the problems we have in the Middle East.

We have agreements with many countries including Iran, including Russia, including other countries that are about different things including armament. It's cooperation like any cooperation between any two countries, which is normal. It's not related to the crisis.

From Russia for example, we have political support, which is different from the cooperation. We have cooperation for 60 years now, but now we have political support.

I wouldn't have said that Anthony Eden was equipped by nature to deal with the situation in the world today. I would have said that he was portentous, sincere, honest and rather stupid.

Donald Trump is much more suspicious of international institutions; much more skeptical of the contributions that America's traditional allies have made; more willing, in some cases, to entertain the possibility of getting along with countries who some would call an adversary, such as Mr. Putin's Russia.

Donald Trump is going to have to live in the real world in which Vladimir Putin is exactly who he presents himself to be, and Putin is extremely skilled. He's not going to make it very easy for the United States or Germany. And he's going to test Trump.

This is sort of the Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids, what we are doing to Russia right now, and I don't think this is a good idea.

Many politicians in the West cling to the notion of a partnership with Russia. They want to include [Vladimir] Putin, make compromises and constantly negotiate new deals with him. But history has taught us that the longer we pursue appeasement and do nothing, the higher the price will be later on. Dictators don't ask "Why?" before they seize even more power. They ask: "Why not?"

Some years ago our Japanese counterparts asked us to resume the discussions of the issue and so we did meeting them halfway. Over the passed couple of years the contacts were practically frozen on the initiative of the Japanese side, not ours. At the same time, presently our partners have expressed their eagerness to resume discussions on this issue [the Kuril Islands].