Ed Gillespie Quotes

I believe in not attacking a country pre-emptively unless you're sure of what you're doing and you're working with allies.

I think most Americans believe that although it's better not to use military force if you can avoid it, that the world simply doesn't provide us the luxury of giving away military force as an important tool of foreign policy.

We have no desire to be the world's policeman. But America does want to be the world's peacemaker.

What I've learned, and will try to remember from now on, is that defending your country's credibility is never sufficient reason to fight a war.

As a Republican, I voted with President Clinton consistently in our efforts to bail out our European friends in Kosovo to stop genocide. I am proud of those votes. I am proud of President Clinton for that.

And, perhaps most importantly, regional conflicts will again and again confront us with a cruel choice between costly engagement and costly indifference.

We are a country that has many friends, many allies, when we operate in the world, we operate with friends and allies that's been true for decades and if we wind up going to war in Iraq it will be true in Iraq.

It is one thing to be against unilateralism and against nonhumanitarian interventionism - but it is quite another thing to be against humanitarian interventionism.

I'm a national security liberal, which I tell people because it's meant to sound absurd.

The Obama foreign policy, in broad strokes, has been a disaster.

These measures may not constitute an absolute guarantee of peace, but, in my opinion, they constitute the greatest preventive measures ever adopted by nations.

International law seeks to avoid the use of force but does not preclude it.

Unilateral preemption should not in any way be the model for how we conduct international relations... It brings us into very dangerous territory and it could be used and abused by any other country. We need to continue to base our security on multilateralism, and on the Security Council.

You have repeatedly asserted that you and the German people have no desire for war. If this is true there need be no war. Nothing can persuade the peoples of the earth that any governing power has any right or need to inflict the consequences of war on its own or any other people save in the cause of self-evident home defense.

If Americans are entitled to hit Iraq unilaterally, then why isn't Russia entitled to the same with respect to Georgia? Why is China not entitled to the same with respect to some other neighboring country which, according to Chinese views, may be supporting insurrection in Tibet or Shenyang? Why, say, India is not entitled to hit Pakistan, which openly supports terrorists in Kashmir and which has nuclear weapons, and which has a very fragile domestic situation under which fundamentalists any day can come to power

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations—acting individually or in concert—will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.

[America should engage in] Progressive development of regional and other collective arrangements for individual and collective self-defense

For nearly 7 decades United States has been the anchor of global security. This is meant more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them.

Should President Clinton have killed Osama bin Laden when he had the opportunity in 1990s? Should President Bush have sent the U.S. military into Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein in 2003? Should President Obama have withdrawn all troops from Iraq in 2011? Such questions provide no real insight into future considerations.

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

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.

The United States will always be a global leader, and we need to actively engage the international community to make sure all citizens of the world live freely and equally under their country's rule of law. We cannot, however, afford to fight other nations' wars interminably or stabilize their regions.

Wars of necessity are essentially unavoidable. They involve the most important national interests, a lack of promising alternatives to the use of force, and a certain and considerable price to be paid if the status quo is allowed to stand. Examples include World War II and the Korean War.

I challenge anybody to say that I wouldn't know how to approach foreign policy because, unlike some of the other people, I at least have a foreign policy philosophy, which is an extension of the Reagan philosophy. Peace through strength, and my philosophy is peace through strength and clarity.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power - including strong and principled diplomacy.