Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

We are the only country that can provide world leadership, but we have to have the support of the American people to do it.

Every time something has gone wrong with foreign policy, it’s been because the American people have not been involved in the process.

When it comes to foreign policy, the American people will ultimately reward not the party with the most ambitious vision but the party with the most sober and realistic one.

That is where American foreign policy begins—with the interest, the aspirations, and the values of the American people.

When Americans support using our military abroad, they want to see a clear plan. They want to know what they need to do and when - and policymakers want to know that there's broad public support for the effort.

No foreign policy can be sustained in the United States of America without the informed consent of the American people. And informed means just that, successes and failure, a realistic assessment of where we are and what the president plans to do about it.

I said it was my feeling that the American people would struggle for peace, and that has since been underscored by the President of these United States.

Diplomacy is not an end in itself if it does not advance U.S. interests.

Wars should be over in three days or less... and the American people must be all for it from the outset.

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.

The State Department desperately needs to be vigorously harnessed. It has too big a role to play in the formulation of foreign policy, and foreign policy is too important to be left up to foreign service officers.

One of my goals upon becoming Secretary of State was to take diplomacy out of capitals, out of government offices, into the media, into the streets of countries.

I would have a democratic process for people to get together and talk about the way they want the government to conduct business with China.

This is not going to be decided by public opinion polls. It is a national security issue.

One of the reasons we don't have a serious foreign policy is that we pay too much attention to public opinion.

When I disagree with the President on foreign policy, I ought to do it on American soil.

It is only while the public mind is held in suspense—It is only while there is doubt as to what will be the result of deliberations—it is only while we linger in this hall that any manifestations of uneasiness will show themselves. Whenever war is declared, the people will put forth their rights.

Undertaking to explain our foreign policy in terms of our public opinion is to explain one mystery in terms of another.

Public diplomacy, practiced in harmony with traditional diplomacy, will enable us to advance our interest, to protect our security, and to continue to provide the moral basis for our leadership in the world.

There’s a minimum threshold any man or woman has to cross on national security and foreign policy for the American people to think you’re remotely eligible to be president and these guys have a long way to go.

It is absolutely critical to build domestic support for any foreign initiative.

As long as Americans believe that their country has vital interests everywhere on earth, they will behave the same.

For more than 70 years, the presidents of both parties believed that American security and prosperity were directly tied to the success of freedom in the world. And they knew that the success depended, in large part, on U.S. leadership. This mission came naturally, because it expressed the DNA of American idealism.

You have an administration which understands America's international responsibilities and interests, but you have a population which is anxious, tired, and doesn't want to bear any burden and pay any price. And that's very difficult for whoever becomes president.

The American people deserve an honest assessment of the state of our foreign affairs.