Tom Ridge Quotes

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home.

How are we going to make the people of the United States realize that if they want peace in the future they must make the sacrifices that are required to bring about economic improvement in a great many countries?

U.S. foreign aid must be used more strategically to achieve our national security goals.

America needs to be secure at home and abroad.

Our policies toward Iraq simply are to protect the region and to protect Iraq's people and neighbors.

Foreign policy is about trying to deliver for them the best possible economic benefits, the chance to travel, to study, to work, the opportunity through trade to be able to sell their goods and services and as much peace and security so they can live and bring their kids up so they don't have to fear war.

The principles that should guide American foreign policy are simple: the world is safer when America leads, only strength ensures peace and freedom, and America must stand with its allies and challenge its adversaries.

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.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

The next president needs to know foreign policy and not learn it on the job.

We are ready to engage in international co-operation against terrorism with a view to safeguarding national interests and regional security and stability.

We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest.

Governments interfere in the affairs of each other, when they conceive their own peace is endangered.

The first responsibility of any President is to work for peace in the world and prosperity at home.

We have to develop preventive diplomacy.

The Mutual Security Act was intended not to fight a war but to prevent a war.

Why do we give money to people who hate us?

The United States has become geopolitically hobbled seemingly interested in grand strategic initiatives or transformative diplomacy, as its attention constantly dances from one crisis to another.

If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.

I work on the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees to keep us safe at home and strong in the world.

In the aftermath of September 11, it has been made clear to us that our foreign policy can no longer afford to narrowly focus on short-term benefits. For our nation's long-term security, we must be active in promoting American values abroad through our foreign policy.

A more worldly and competent foreign and defence policy is by far the preferred first line of defence - rather than the default position of relying on expensive but problematic hardware.

Winston Churchill famously said that meeting jaw-to-jaw is better than war. With Trump, the strategy seems to be jobs jobs jobs - at home and abroad.

The military's job is to win the war. A president's job is to win the peace.

We need, from time to time, to use military force or all of the resources at our command in order to defend the nation and defend our friends. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I think there are probably some who actually believe, if we just go talk nice to these folks, everything is going to be OK. I don't think the world works that way.