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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: 72
Born: 1952
Born: January 1
Diplomat
Washington
District of Columbia
Realistic
Russia
Exist
Mistake
Actually

More quotes by Daniel Fried

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Both the Bush people and [Barack] Obama people had no problem working with the holdovers. They weren`t out to get them.
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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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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The sense the great democracies of the world - Europe, the United States, Japan, others - are going to set the agenda for the world. [Russians] want to bring that down.
Daniel Fried
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Nationalism is like cheap alcohol. First it makes you drunk, then it makes you blind, then it kills you.
Daniel Fried
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[Russians would like to] undermine the West and its institutions, create doubts about NATO, create doubts about the European Union, support nationalists on the right just as the Soviet communists supported communists on the left. Weaken the West in general and create an atmosphere in which we`re uncertain about ourselves.
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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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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Internal reform in Russia would require a better relationship with the West.
Daniel Fried
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We have a deep sense of American equality and opportunity, and that informs the way in which we brought our American power to the world, because we thought that other nations were entitled to that same opportunity in a rules-based system.
Daniel Fried
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Remember, the American grand strategy works when other countries feel secure. But it doesn't work if we acquiesce in the aggression of other countries.
Daniel Fried
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No great power is ever satisfied with its sphere of influence. They never are.
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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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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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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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'm one of the many people who has said that the Hillary Clinton we know in private was effective, strong, courageous, and funny. And the campaigner we saw was less so, more scripted. Many people have made that observation, and it was my observation, too, but I'm grateful for what she did.
Daniel Fried
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The European Union, ok, right, it has a bureaucracy, right. It`s sometimes difficult to deal with but so what? You hire a couple of people like me to work the European Union, and it can be done. It`s pretty good.
Daniel Fried