Foreign Policy Quotes - Page 18

• We need a leader who has a sense of balance, an understanding of the ebb and flow of history and a sense of our country's unique place in it. This is a foreign policy debate, and you cannot conduct foreign policy without a sense of what we are fighting for. And any President who can reduce the conduct of this country's affairs to a morning's attack by a bunch of demented fascists does not, in my view, understand what this great nation is all about.

  John F. Kerry

  Fighting, Unique, Leader

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• During a time of surplus, a time of peace before 2001, it was much easier to try and find middle ground. We were running surpluses. But during a time when we're careening into bankruptcy and failing miserably on our foreign policy it's just not the same old "find consensus, go along to get along, be pragmatic, come together" place that it was. I think that some very hard decisions and very hard choices have to be made. They won't be popular, but they're necessary.

  Dan Coats

  Running, Thinking, Decision

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• Every president inherits difficult problems. George W. Bush inherited eight years of a failed foreign policy and did nothing about the growing threat of Islamic terrorism, except a one-time lob of a cruise missile into the desert at a camp that had long been abandoned. George Bush inherited that, and 9-11 was the result of that. Every president inherits problems. Harry Truman inherited a war. Stop blaming the person before you and go forward and take leadership and deal with the problem.

  Dan Coats

  War, Islamic, Long

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

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• I think anybody currently running for the presidency on the Republican side by default would be a huge improvement over Obama in every area, including foreign policy and the use of the military.

  Rush Limbaugh

  Running, Military, Thinking

  Source: www.rushlimbaugh.com

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• I think, on the foreign policy side, that there is a need for disruption. We've had three administrations follow a pretty consistent policy toward North Korea, and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere.

  Robert M. Gates

  Thinking, Consistent, North Korea

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• On the foreign policy side, there's the risk of being too spontaneous and too disruptive where you end up doing more harm than damage. And figuring out that balance is where having strong people around you matters.

  Robert M. Gates

  Strong, People, Risk

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• The American tradition of foreign policy exceptionalism, our grand strategy as a nation, reaches back much further. Really at the turn - the end of the 19th century, when we achieved power a generation after the Civil War, the outlines of an American vision came into focus, and what we - it was based on two things. One, our realization that our values and our interests were the same, and that our business interests would advance as our values advanced in the world.

  Daniel Fried

  War, Two, Focus

  Source: www.politico.com

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• Realism is important in foreign policy. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve, and about the pitfalls, and problems along the way, of which there are plenty. Nothing is easy. It's always rough.

  Daniel Fried

  Important, Pitfalls, Way

  Source: www.politico.com

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• Realism as a foreign policy doctrine means basically you don't care about values; you consider them a luxury, and it leads to a kind of acquiescence in spheres of influence. Now, spheres of influence sound good if you're a graduate student, or a certain kind of - an academic with a certain habit of mind. But in fact, spheres of influence don't work out very well, certainly not for the victims, and there are always victims.

  Daniel Fried

  Mean, Luxury, Work Out

  Source: www.politico.com

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• We inherited a national debt that has doubled in eight years. Think of it - $20 trillion. It's doubled. And we inherited a foreign policy marked by one disaster after another. We don't win anymore. When was the last time we won? Did we win a war? Do we win anything? Do we win anything? We're going to win. We're going to win big, folks. We're going to start winning again, believe me.

  Donald Trump

  War, Believe, Winning

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• I think the foreign policy is really not Donald Trump administration concern. Like the Syria strike. I mean, it meant almost nothing. They hit an empty air base. Within a day, it was functioning again. Planes were flying off it. It was for a domestic show, you know - show what a tough guy I am; I'm not Barack Obama.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Thinking, Guy

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Gore Vidal, Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, talk about how the U.S. became a national security state after World War II. Essentially there's this bipartisan foreign policy elite who've been calling the shots for the last few decades and they're clearly still in control regardless of how clownish or absurd they demonstrate themselves to be. There's no shaking their orthodoxy. To me it was the most depressing thing, these full-scale military interventions firsthand for a number of years, seeing how quickly we can get involved in another war with very little debate.

  Michael Hastings

  Depressing, Military, War

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• America is far less safe and the world is far less stable than when Obama made the decision to pub Hillary Clinton in charge of America's foreign policy.

  Donald Trump

  America, Decision, World

  "And Then the Balloons Dropped, and Then the World Started Coming to an End" by Margaret Doris, www.esquire.com. July 22, 2016.

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• Mike Pence came out and said this was a courtesy call, then Donald Trump a few hours later went on Twitter, as is his wont, and essentially linked the call to Taiwan with a whole series of things he doesn't like about Chinese economic and foreign policies and implied that the U.S. views of the status of Taiwan are now up for negotiation, that he wants them to be part of a broader negotiation with China about a whole series of economic and foreign policy issues. So, we just don't really know what exactly they're planing to do with this.

  Geoff Dyer

  Chinese, Hours, Economic

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Republicans - Reagan but also George W. Bush - believed in freedom, and they believed in America's role. To have the governing party speak in terms of a zero-sum world, or speak in terms of America's purpose as no more than grabbing the largest share possible in the short run, goes against our foreign policy tradition that goes back to 1900, really.

  Daniel Fried

  Running, Zero, Party

  Source: www.politico.com

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• Bernie Sanders is a disappointment on foreign policy, totally doesn't think about it. But he has the possibility to be more isolationist, which would be good for us actually. We manage to kill several million people on this planet without taking any credit for it or blame. It's a heavy karma we have.

  Oliver Stone

  Karma, Disappointment, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Robert Kagan said the neocons couldn't get a better president than Hillary Clinton, who would enforce the neocon foreign policy. No one's questioned it.

  Oliver Stone

  President, Clinton, Policy

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Our current administration is a patchwork - some from the French, some from the Swiss, the Turks, the Ottomans; then the Russians came; now we have a global presence. We need to create a system that is organic and can function for the whole state. Currently, foreign policy here is domestic policy.

  Ashraf Ghani

  Policy

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• Now, I can't help but feel inferior. When I'm out in public in Afghanistan, I feel inferior because I'm doing everything I can to stay hidden, silent. I feel inferior because I am seeing firsthand the impact of America's foreign policy and can't help but feel like a living, breathing representation of that - despite my own personal views about that policy. It reinforces to me that I want to be part of the solution - and I want my work to be part of the solution - not part of the problem.

  Beth Murphy

  Helping, Problem, Silent

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I believe on foreign policy that there is little difference between the Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We believe that the best course for containing North Korea's nuclear program is through diplomacy, and we disagree with the language the President Donald Trump has used, and the fact that he's made it more difficult for diplomacy to work.

  Ben Cardin

  Believe, President, Language

  Source: www.politico.com

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• The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals, massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled America dry.

  Donald Trump

  America, Political, Trying

  "Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump Release Final Campaign Ads Ahead of Election Day" by Meena Jang, www.hollywoodreporter.com. November 11, 2016.

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• The military sensed weakness, exploited it and played Barack Obama. Obama's foreign policy has been consistently hawkish despite this reluctant warrior schtick that he pulls. But at the end of the day a reluctant warrior is still a warrior. Look at the drone strikes, the tripling of the war in Afghanistan, and now Libya. I'm convinced that had Obama been in the Senate in 2003 he would have voted for the Iraq war. He's clearly easily convinced by his advisers and the Pentagon.

  Michael Hastings

  Military, War, Weakness

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• It was interesting watching the Afghanistan war review deliberations, this three-month process where Barack Obama did the most thorough foreign policy review ever by a modern American president. Compare that to Libya. For a month he said we weren't going to do anything, then suddenly changed his mind and did it on the fly. My view is that it's not how long or quick you take to make a decision, it's whether you make the right one.

  Michael Hastings

  War, Long, Interesting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• [Hillary Clinton] is part of the establishment, and that's good for foreign policy and for understanding the ongoing health care system.

  Reid Hoffman

  Understanding, Ongoing, Care

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• As the wealthiest country with all the blessings that we have, do we have an obligation to help the outside world? I think we do, as we have an obligation to help everyone within our own borders. The problem is that this automatically gets translated into: "What's the point of having a huge military if we can't bomb people?" That's the problem that I have. Our foreign policy is essentially our defense policy.

  Michael Hastings

  Country, Military, Blessing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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