Quotes by Chuck Hagel

About Chuck Hagel:

Charles Timothy "Chuck" Hagel is an American politician who was the 24th United States Secretary of Defense for two years in the Obama administration. He previously served as United States Senator from Nebraska from 1997 to 2009.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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, cert...

Chuck Hagel

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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.

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

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

Chuck Hagel

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

Chuck Hagel

Author Bio

  • NameChuck Hagel
  • DescriptionUnited States Secretary of Defense
  • AliasesCharles Timothy Hagel
  • BornOctober 4, 1946
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionPolitician
  • AwardsPurple Heart; Commendation Medal; Gallantry Cross; Combat Infantryman Badge