Chuck Hagel Quotes

History has shown that a country most effectively speaks with one voice. When nationally elected officials work together, build consensus, and provide leadership, the American people will follow.

Palestinians caged up like animals.

We live in a world where there are dangerous people, there are bad people.

Well, Mr Obama inherited probably the biggest inventory of problems, certainly foreign policy problems, than any American president ever has. I think the entire inventory of problems that he inherited is probably as big overall as any president, certainly since Franklin Roosevelt and maybe, in some cases, worse.

The recent wave of Taliban attacks has made clear that the international community must not waiver in its support for a stable, secure and prosperous Afghanistan.

I'm a supporter of Israel, always have been.

The twenty first century will require a re-affirmation and re-definition of our alliances and international organisations.

Iraq was a war of choice, like Vietnam.

I have never believed you go to war in Iraq, you go to war in Afghanistan, and believe that you can deal with those battlefields, those countries, in microcosms, or narrow channels.

Well, let's go back to the original intent of Social Security. It is an insurance contract.

Well, no American wants to in any way hurt our capabilities to national defense, but that doesn't mean an unlimited amount of money, and a blank check for anything they want at any time, for any purpose. Not at all.

Our alliances should be understood as a means to expand our influence, not as a constraint on our power. The expansion of democracy and freedom in the world should be a shared interest and value with all nations.

There has to be a reason and objective (to air strikes). What does it do to move the effort down the road for a political conversation?

Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq.

Our foreign policy needs to support our energy, economic, defense and domestic policies. It all falls within the arch of national interest. There will be windows of opportunity, but they will open and close quickly.

I'm a United States senator. I'm not an Israeli senator.

My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world, that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together, and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests.

It is easy to get into war, not so easy to get out.

Deserves some consideration, and I think that should have been done right from the beginning.

We must prepare for everything.

Peace comes through dealing with people. Peace doesn't come at the end of a bayonet or the end of a gun.

Too often in Washington we tend to see foreign policy as an abstraction, with little understanding of what we are committing our country to: the complications and consequences of endeavors.

Foreign policy is all about a universe of bad decisions, imperfect decisions; every situation is different. The dynamics, the atmospherics, the people, the pressures, the geopolitical realities shift.

No border that touches Israel is always secure.

The Israeli people must be free to live in peace and security.

You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.

Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning.

I don't think it's a matter of going back and having a review of our process. Our process is about as thorough as there can be. Is it imperfect? Yes. Is there risk? Yes, but we start with the fact that we have an American that's being held hostage and that American's life is in danger and that's where we start. And then we proceed from there.

I believe, and always have, that America must engage - not retreat - in the world.

When I came to the Senate in 1997, the world was being redefined by forces no single country controlled or understood. The implosion of the Soviet Union and a historic diffusion of economic and geopolitical power created new influences and established new global power centers - and new threats.

(The) chain of command has failed over the years, obviously, for a lot of reasons.

The United States can't impose democracies. We can't impose our will. The Russians found that out in Afghanistan.

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

Alliances and international organizations should be understood as opportunities for leadership and a means to expand our influence, not as constraints on our power.

People are not trying to get into China, they're trying to get out of China. The United States is the only great country where people are trying to get into to this country for obvious reasons.

This current government in Iraq has never fulfilled the commitments it made to form a unity government with the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shia. We have worked hard with them within the confines of our ability to do that but we can't dictate to them.