Quotes from Chuck Hagel

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

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

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

Institutions are imperfect. Governments surely are. People are.

Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

Desperate men do desperate things when you take hope away. And that's where the Palestinians are today.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

This is a complicated time to govern in the world today because of so much going on and it's coming at us at such an unprecedented rate.

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

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.

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.

Imposing democracy through force is a roll of the dice.

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.

No border that touches Israel is always secure.