This was not a golf outing. This was not a real estate transactional kind of arrangement. ... Engagement must be connected to a strategic interest, a strategic purpose. I don't know what that strategic purpose was. I am now convinced we didn't have one.

Chuck Hagel

Categorized in : Politics

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

Chuck Hagel

planning sound way

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

democracy rights play

There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction. And thinking through, asking the questions, "Well, then what happens? What comes next?" is critically important.

Chuck Hagel

important asking thinking

I think this is the biggest lesson a president or any of us who has responsibility to govern have to learn: There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction.

Chuck Hagel

president responsibility thinking

No one person leads alone - can't do it, it's impossible. It doesn't make any sense. You need a team.

Chuck Hagel

team impossible needs

I took an oath of office to the Constitution, I didn't take an oath of office to my party or my president.

Chuck Hagel

oath-of-office party president

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Chuck Hagel

appeasement engagement surrender

We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.

Chuck Hagel

technology evil country

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.

Chuck Hagel

iraq white reality

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

leadership opportunity mean

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

Chuck Hagel

great-nations great-power nations

Closing Guantanamo Bay is not a military solution. The closing of that prison, which I support, I supported it when I was in the Senate, requires more than just a military dimension.

Chuck Hagel

dimensions support military

And this - this board was - was impanelled in 1951. And it's gone through ups and downs in how the secretaries have used it. But I have put a premium on that advisory board.

Chuck Hagel

boards military gone

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

Chuck Hagel

bayonets gun people

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

agility alliances problem

I don't get into the book-telling business of conversations I have with the president. That's not my style, and I don't think that's a responsible thing to do.

Chuck Hagel

style book thinking

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

Chuck Hagel

records vote belief

The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere, and should not be demonized or condemned for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge and criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democratic, nor what this country has stood for over 200 years.

Chuck Hagel

hurt country years

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

Chuck Hagel

dice force democracy

It's critically important that we have governments to work with, that we have entities to work with. President Hadi has been a good partner in that, and we would hope that the next set of leaders that govern Yemen will also take the same approach to cooperation with the United States.

Chuck Hagel

government important leader