Tom Cotton Quotes

Power alone is respected and ... in order to gain peace, the United States has no alternative but to wield it

Peace is purchased from strength. It's not purchased from weakness or unilateral retreats.

Foreign policy works best when force and diplomacy are used together.

You can't get a diplomatic solution unless behind that, is the threat of force.

Obviously, having served in wars myself, I'm eager to do everything possible to avoid them, but our military capability vis-a-vis a country like Iran is a major source of leverage in any negotiation that we should never, ever give up.

If you don't want war, then you had better be an advocate for diplomacy with muscle.

Rogue regimes never respond to anything less than hardball.

The goal of this Nation, I so strongly believe, is to be a preeminent world power. We have to understand what comes with that: The responsibility to be strong.

In international affairs, you never threaten things you're not prepared to do.

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner - by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.

I told him that my own opinion was that the time now and the method now to deal with Russia was to keep our mouths shut and let our actions speak for words.

What we want is a lasting peace. We will oppose soft measures which invite the breaking of the peace.

Appeasement was never a very clever policy, and it should not be our option today.

I'm not ready to be that guy who can meet with world leaders and all that. It's tremendous what Bono does. I don't know if I could do it, not the way he does. I don't think many people could.

Negotiate with those who wish to talk - and take action against those who create mischief.

There are some people that will be deterred by the fact that we have nuclear weapons... But those people are the folks we can deal with anyway.

Our moral authority is as important, if not more important, than our troop strength or our high-tech weapons. We are rapidly losing that moral authority, not only in the Arab world but all over the world.

Colin Powell has said over the years that Saddam Hussein is like a toothache. It recurs from time to time, and you just have to live with it. At other times, he's compared Saddam Hussein to a kidney stone that will eventually pass. But he has never said, 'You have to operate and take out the kidney stone.'

Peace comes through strength, not through retreat.

Poles understand perhaps better than anyone the consequences of making toothless warnings to brutal tyrants and terrorist regimes.

A nation must be strong in spirit, knowledge, science and morals. Military strength comes last…Today it is not enough to have arms in hand in order to take one’s place in the world.

Great powers engage.

Russia has been too weak, and the weak get beaten.

Diplomacy without military capability is nothing more than prayer.

In order to keep the peace you’ve got to have the authorization to use force.