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Don't mistake the Russia you want to exist for the Russia that there actually is. Be realistic.

Daniel Fried

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Daniel Fried
Age: 73
Born: 1952
Born: January 1
Diplomat
Washington
District of Columbia
Actually
Realistic
Russia
Exist
Mistake

More quotes by Daniel Fried

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Our mistakes, blunders, flaws, and shortcomings notwithstanding, the world America made after 1945 and 1989 has enjoyed the longest period of general peace in the west since Roman times, and decades of prosperity.
Daniel Fried
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Internal reform in Russia would require a better relationship with the West.
Daniel Fried
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We are a new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. That's what makes us Americans. When we sign onto that belief, we sign onto the core American identity, and that's very deep in us.
Daniel Fried
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The Russians are using the tools at their disposal to weaken Western solidarity, to create doubt, to support nationalist parties, just as the old Soviets supported leftist parties. We need a united Western response to this multi-pronged threat.
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I think, Russia is pushing against the West in general, not just the United States but the institutions of the West, the key governments in the West using a variety of tools, as well as military assault on Ukraine.
Daniel Fried
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Sanctions are a strong and agreed element of the West's response to Russia's aggression. It is puzzling to me that there is so much skepticism about the sanctions. I don't understand it.
Daniel Fried
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We should not assume that Russia is doomed to live according to its worst traditions. In fact, in Russian history, failed efforts at external aggression, when they fail, usually bring on areas of internal reform.
Daniel Fried
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Nothing can be taken for granted and this great achievement is now under assault by Russia. But what we did in my time is no less honorable. It is for the present generation to defend.
Daniel Fried
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I am not one of these people that believes that Russia is doomed, or somehow, you know, inevitably disposed to act according to its worst traditions. But all the more reason, therefore, to resist their aggression and take it seriously.
Daniel Fried
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Russia comes from a place of deep resentment against the West, in general, and the United States in particular. They are rapacious, because they want back as much of their empire as they can grab. And we need to resist that. At the same time, we should be able to look for areas of common interest.
Daniel Fried
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Realism is important in foreign policy. You have to be realistic about what you can achieve, and about the pitfalls, and problems along the way, of which there are plenty. Nothing is easy. It's always rough.
Daniel Fried
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We Americans are focused on Russia`s attacks with our electoral system and we`re consumed with that. But Russia is pushing against the West generally.
Daniel Fried
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The Civil War was fought, in a sense, over whether that sentence - all men are created equal - is to be taken literally. And the southerners in the 1850s argued that it was not.
Daniel Fried
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America's grand strategy did not come from nowhere. It followed from our deeper conception of ourselves, and our American identity. Who are we, Americans? What is our nation? We are not an ethnostate with identity rooted in shared blood. The option of a white man's republic ended at Appomattox.
Daniel Fried
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The United States comes in 1945 and we basically blow the whistle.
Daniel Fried
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My 40 years in the foreign service and the careers of many of my friends became associated with the fall of the Soviet Empire and the putting in order of what came after - the building of a Europe whole, free, and at peace. It`s hard to recall today how improbable victory in the Cold War appeared.
Daniel Fried
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[Donald Trump administration] didn`t ask me to stay and 40 years seemed like enough.
Daniel Fried
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I think the West is in a low point we haven`t seen since the 1930s.
Daniel Fried
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It was my honor to have done what I could do to help. I learned to never underestimate the possibility of change, that values have power and that time and patience can pay off, especially if you`re serious about your objectives.
Daniel Fried
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Be careful about a policy generated with enthusiasm in the rush of a moment. It usually doesn't turn out well.
Daniel Fried