Military Quotes - Page 150

We first became conscious of the plane publicly on a Monday. I thought then by the weekend it would be done. But then the Chinese military, the defense minister made a statement saying that if there was no apology from the United States, the Chinese military and the Chinese people would never understand. No reference to the government or the Communist Party, and that obviously presented an internal problem to the Chinese leadership, which was travelling at that moment.

If a Chinese plane landed at Los Angeles Airport having just bought down an American military plane, he wouldn't be permitted to leave the next day. So then we developed a framework which should have been acceptable as a concept to the Chinese, namely to express regret for the loss of life and maintain our position that we had a right to fly these missions.

My grandfather had come over as a member of the czarist army, to make an arms deal with the British government. Being a blinkered military man, he was unaware that the Russian Revolution was about to take place.

After Vietnam, the Democrats became fundamentally the anti-military as a party.

Christopher Lynch has made the best and the first careful translation of Machiavelli's Art of War. With useful notes, an excellent introduction, an interpretive essay, glossary, and index, it is a treasure for readers of military history and Renaissance thought as well as for lovers of Machiavelli.

When we refused to be forced out of Berlin, we demonstrated to the people of Europe that with their cooperation we would act, and act resolutely, when their freedom was threatened.

Do you know how I feel about that? I'm sure this is no big surprise... what a mistake. I should never have voted for that, but I accepted what [former Secretary of State] Colin Powell and the others said. But it took me just a matter of a few months to realize it was a bad mistake, and my record speaks for itself. I've spoken out against what was going on, not once, not twice, but lots of times. And I'm sorry that I was misled, but I was, and it was a mistake for me to vote for that war.

As far as I'm concerned there shouldn't be a single boot on the ground. There's enough American blood in Iraq that lasts forever.

There's an explosion of Indian fiction of all kinds, from military thrillers to chicklit. I think that's exciting.

For some twenty years the window that opened at the end of the Cold War has been allowed to hang flapping in the wind. It is high time that the five nuclear-weapon states take seriously their commitment to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament.

To me the question of the environment is more ominous than that of peace and war...I'm more worried about global warming than I am of any major military conflict.

The Book of Revelation has all the authority, in these theological uplands, of military orders in time of war. The people turn to it for light upon all their problems, spiritual and secular.

The military profession, especially in the long-established great powers, is deeply pessimistic about the likelihood that people and countries will behave well under stress. Professional officers are trained to think in terms of emergent threats, and this [climate change] is as big a threat as you are going to find. Never mind what the pundits are telling the public about the perils of climate change; what are the military strategists telling their governments? That will tell us a great deal about the probable shape of the future, although it may not tell us anything that we want to hear.

The military preferred - invariably - those who could be readily defined, assigned roles, understood, and controlled.

The infantryman slithers in the mud, while many teams of horses are needed to drag each gun forward. All wheeled vehicles sink up to their axles in the slime. Even tractors can only move with great difficulty. A large portion of our heavy artillery was soon stuck fast... The strain that all this caused our already exhausted troops can perhaps be imagined.

I'm completely opposed to the idea of becoming accustomed to foreign military campaigns.

I was never a member of the peace movement or a pacifist, nor was I ever carried away from a demonstration outside a military barracks. Perhaps that's why I don't feel the need to compensate for anything.

Military missions cannot be a normal tool of politics, but instead must remain the great exception.

Military missions are not democratic development aid.

In "Three Cups of Tea" I was fairly critical of the military. And I mentioned that they're laptop warriors and there's no boots on the ground. But I can say now that they've gone through a tremendous learning curve.

I'm no military expert, and these figures might not be exactly right,' I said. 'But as best I can tell, we've launched 114 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan so far. Now take the cost of one of those missiles, tipped with a Raytheon guidance system, which I think is about $840,000. For that much money, you could build dozens of schools that could provide tens of thousands of students with a balanced, non extremist education over the course of a generation. Which do you think will make us more secure?

The world understands that our country could solve all conflicts with military solutions, but we won't because we have leaders and we have a moral responsibility but we have also have a political - we have a political leader who is scared and who is raised on the idea that American force is the true evil.

If Russia had the same military power that America did, earth would be called Russia.

For years, even before 9/11, I've been trying to warn that the threat from amateur biolabs will ultimately turn out to be far more troublesome than leakage from military labs - perhaps even more costly and deadly than nuclear terrorism.

For interests that are vital to the U.S. - that is, essential for our survival and wellbeing - the U.S. should be prepared to use military force - including unilaterally, if necessary.