Henry A. Kissinger Quotes

If you look ahead 10 years, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the people of Russia had become fans of missile defence.

Moscow believes that using force constitutes strategic defense.

It's very difficult to convince other countries that they shouldn't pursue nuclear weapons programs if we ourselves are actively developing a component of a strategic defense system.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt's time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it's different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

Well, the most important thing a president will be is commander-in-chief. And that requires having an understanding of the complex issues on foreign policy. Foreign policy presents us often with hard choices, not black or white choices.

I think Russia is dangerous, not a superpower. I know what the president is trying to say. I worked for him for five years, not just two.He doesn't want us to overreact. He doesn't want to go back to the Cold War and some superpower competition. But my own view, and I think General Mattis stated something similar today, is that Russia is a challenge for the United States. It is a threat to some of our allies.

The fact is that we have been consistent in a predictable 60-year commitment to national security, while our friends and former enemies - by intent or default - have followed different paths since 1989. We stayed mostly the same as they became hypopowers that, to take a small example, would and could do nothing should a madman in Korea wish to kill millions.

I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, what it does it actually weakens our national defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we're fretting day in and day - night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force.

We need to deter Putin from further actions because this is a very real threat.

Now they [NATO and the USA ] are sitting there, and we are talking about all these crises we would otherwise not have. You can also see this striving for an absolute triumph in the American missile defense plans.

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.

As far as missile defense is concerned, a very thorough consultation process is underway.

Pakistan has made no mention of ending our tests. We have a missile program, and it is in the national interest whatever we want to do.

Many in China find it perplexing that the U.S. and Russian perceptions are still so heavily influenced by the Cold War.

National missile defense has become a question of theology, not policy.

The decision to withdraw our missile defense sites from Poland put us in greater jeopardy, in my view.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

Both World War II and the subsequent Cold War gave America's involvement in world affairs a clear focus. The objectives of foreign policy were relatively easy to define, and they could be imbued with high moral content.

How can we pressure China on North Korea if China's one of the two largest holders of American debt?

In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.

America needs an adult in the White House who knows how to deal with China.

I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.

I've worked for four presidents, and I've concluded that almost nothing is inevitable. History is to a significant extent the result of the interaction of personalities and ideas. And so I don't believe war between the U.S. and China is in any way inevitable, and it's well within the province of diplomacy and statecraft to avoid it.

I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Putin. And I think I would have a very, very good relationship with Russia.

Ukraine is the instrument for Russia to test the West's 'red lines'