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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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Daniel Fried
Age: 73
Born: 1952
Born: January 1
Diplomat
Washington
District of Columbia
Americans
Electoral
System
Consumed
Attacks
Pushing
Generally
Russia
Focused
West

More quotes by Daniel Fried

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Russia committed an act of aggression in Ukraine, and that's the first time since 1945 a European country has seized the territory of another European country. That's serious business. They started a war with their neighbor. Their troops as well as the separatists funded and controlled by Russia are killing people just about every day.
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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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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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 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.
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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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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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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America's security and prosperity didn't work unless other nations were also secure, and prosperous. There had to be something in it for them, so we weren't looking simply to grab territory, or widen our sphere of influence, or anything like that. We wanted to make the world a better place, and get very rich in the process.
Daniel Fried
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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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[Russians] want to bring us down to make them feel better about the failure of the Soviet Union. I don`t mean bring us down as in collapse, but bring us down a notch in a big way.
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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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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Diminish us across the board. They [Russians] do not wish us well.
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
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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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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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Putinsim is not necessarily the end state for Russia. Russia has moved in many directions since the early 1980s.
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