Chuck Hagel Quotes
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We are the adult power in the world. It is because of the United States, our action or inaction, that there will be a resolution here.
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We are perceived as a nation at war with Muslims. This debilitating and dangerous perception must be reversed.
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If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes. This is a tough business.
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I'm not saying my idea is the one and only idea. We should have other ideas, but the president has not laid down a specific plan as to how he's going to get us to solvency. I do that.
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If he'd been in the military, he would have learned gun safety.
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Foreign policy will require a strategic agility that, whenever possible, gets ahead of problems, strengthens U.S. security and alliances, and promotes American interests and credibility.
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Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.
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I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.
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We live in a world where there are dangerous people, there are bad people.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You can't just drop the 82nd Airborne into Baghdad and it will all be over.
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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.
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I am fully supportive of 'open service' and committed to LGBT military families.
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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.
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Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.
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No border that touches Israel is always secure.
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I would not trade America's position in the world - our ledger, our debts and assets - for any country in the world. There isn't a country in the world even close to America.
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Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.
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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.
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Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.
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I believe, and always have, that America must engage - not retreat - in the world.