Top 22 Quotes & Sayings by Ivo Daalder

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American public servant Ivo Daalder.
Last updated on April 15, 2025.
Ivo Daalder

Ivo H. Daalder, is President of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and has served since July, 2013. He was the U.S. Permanent Representative on the Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from May 2009 to July 2013. He is a specialist in European security. He was a member of the staff of United States National Security Council (NSC) during the administration of President Bill Clinton, and was one of the foreign policy advisers to President Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

Anybody who has been to Chicago has a very positive view. But not everybody has come to Chicago, and in many ways, Chicago is an undiscovered treasure. It punches below its weight internationally.
Trump believes all foreigners are playing us for suckers - he sees the world as a dark place. How can you lead alliances when you keep telling your allies they are ripping you off?
Syria is a signature to the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which bans the use of chemical warfare. Syria has violated that international norm. For the United States to act in response is the right thing to do, is a legitimate thing to do, and is necessary in order to uphold this very important international standard.
Terrorists are everywhere and, emphatically, not only in Iraq. — © Ivo Daalder
Terrorists are everywhere and, emphatically, not only in Iraq.
Donald Trump has proven adept at mobilizing anti-immigrant and anti-trade sentiment among a minority of Americans into a strong movement that seeks to put the United States first in global affairs. Yet, his is not the majority's view.
I think George H. W. Bush, who I had lots of disagreements with, remarkably managed the end of the Cold War in a way that history will look back at and say, 'Wow.'
We have built up, through our global engagement, a set of institutions that have been built on trust, fundamentally on trust, where allies had trust in the United States to do the right thing when it really came down to it.
The more Trump emphasises America First, the more it turns into America Alone.
President Trump is hardly the first U.S. president to call on the European allies to do more - in one form or another, every president since Harry Truman has done so. What is different this time, however, is Trump's suggestion that America's commitment to the alliance is conditional.
We have not been a normal country when it comes to engagement in the world.
The only place I've ever been where people were as proud about their city as people are in Chicago is Florence, Italy, where I lived for three years.
I follow the Cubs. Only when they play the Nationals do I have a conflict.
A big challenge in combating terrorism is learning how to think about things that we can't imagine.
Our fundamental goal in getting involved in Bosnia in the summer of 1995 was to end the war. Richard Holbrooke's fundamental goal was to negotiate a peace: a peace that was sustaining and self-sustaining over the long term.
Many observers believe that the greatest damage Russia has done to U.S. interests in recent years stems from the Kremlin's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential race. Although there is no question that Moscow's meddling in American elections is deeply worrying, it is just one aspect of the threat Russia poses.
Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has embarked on a systematic challenge to the West. The goal is to weaken the bonds between Europe and the United States and among E.U. members, undermine NATO's solidarity, and strengthen Russia's strategic position in its immediate neighborhood and beyond.
One of the amazing things about September 11 is that we lacked the imagination to connect the dots and foresee it.
America is a country of immigrants. It's what makes America unique.
On climate change, the science is clearer about what you need to do to get a real impact than... on counterterrorism.
I think George H.W. Bush was confronted with some huge challenges - the invasion of Kuwait, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union - that he managed with great aplomb.
Putin wants nothing less than to return Russia to the center of global politics by challenging the primacy that the United States has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War.
I think when the military ousts a sitting president, even if the sitting president is deeply unpopular, that's the definition of a coup. — © Ivo Daalder
I think when the military ousts a sitting president, even if the sitting president is deeply unpopular, that's the definition of a coup.
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