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Henry A. Kissinger Quotes about Army

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The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose.

Henry A. Kissinger
Fighting, Army, Winning
"The Vietnam Negotiations". Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 214, January 1969.

The Western concept of democracy is based on the idea that the loser of an election has the possibility next time round of being the winner. But in the case of an ethnically or religiously divided country, in which minorities don't live peacefully together, this necessary balance can't be properly guaranteed by democracy. When each ethnic group arms itself, it is not surprising that the army of a new state is viewed by part of the population as an ideological militia.

Henry A. Kissinger
Country, Army, Ideas
Source: www.spiegel.de

We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The North Vietnamese used their armed forces the way a bull-fighter uses his cape to keep us lunging in areas of marginal political importance.

Henry A. Kissinger
Military, War, Army
"The Vietnam Negotiations". Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, No. 2, p. 214, January 1969.

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