Chuck Hagel's Quotes

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.

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.

The United Nations has a critical role to play in promoting stability, security, democracy, human rights, and economic development. The UN is as relevant today as at any time in its history, but it needs reform.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When you're dealing in situations that are uncontrollable and combustible, you try to stabilize the situation as quickly as you can and then work toward and work out toward democratic reform.

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.

Bogging down large armies in historically complex, dangerous areas ends in disaster.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

I am fully supportive of 'open service' and committed to LGBT military families.

I have said many times that Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism.

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

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

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

Nations, great nations have limitations. All nations have limitations. Even great powers have limitations.

No border that touches Israel is always secure.

No one individual vote, no one individual quote or no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs, or my record.

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

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

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