Military Quotes - Page 163

If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.

A certain grasp of military affairs is vital for those in charge of general policy.

In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.

(President Nixon,) in the face of a vote to impeach he might try, as "commander-in-chief", to use military forces to keep himself in power.

Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous.

It's unclear how air strikes on our part can succeed unless the Iraqi army is willing to fight, and that's uncertain given the fact that several Iraqi army divisions have melted away.

We shouldn't knee jerk anything. The Iraqi government a few years back, when they had a chance to sign an agreement that would keep some of our presence there, refused to do it. So we've got to be very careful and thoughtful before we do anything.

Because of my own family's service (in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Massachusetts and New York National Guard), I am a strong supporter of the military and do believe that there are just wars.

I was a pretty angry kid, and I got into military history largely as a way to vent my own anger. As I got older it narrowed down to a more specific focus on individual violence. I'm just trying to understand where it came from.

An army is a miniature of the society which produces it.

Because of his military service, Dad was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Astronauts working for the government will always need to be either pilots or mission specialists. Those who want to be pilots should have military experience - ideally, a test pilot background.

I'm not interested myself personally right now in doing anything. We went there. We lost a lot of blood, a lot of treasure, did a lot for them. They weren't interested in us staying. They made a choice.

It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security.

Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.

I come from a military family.

The appropriate place to really render honors, and to acknowledge the sacrifice that somebody has made is at the gravesite. And it's at the gravesite because that's where friends and family can be. That's where members of the military unit can gather.

I had to leave school at 14 because my father got injured in the mines and I had to support my family. I was an undertakers assistant, then a plasterer, before doing my military service in the RAF. All the while, I was doing amateur dramatics and dreaming of getting a scholarship to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Reagan said that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem. And he was going to dismantle that government. Well, long story short, he failed to do that. He built up the military to a much greater status, more people in it, and actually more employees after the end of the Reagan administration. And, to achieve his objectives, he did some of the very same things that Trump is doing to achieve his. What Ronald Reagan really wanted to dismantle was the welfare state. And he had limited success in doing that.

Because national borders are eroding, because of the growth of non-state actors. It's a different kind of a world. We are tied down by a tiny little country - Iraq. It's amazing, given the disparity in military economic strength. It's a world where most of the big problems spill over national boundaries, and there are new kinds of actors and we're feeling our way as to how to deal with them.

I've never seen a great military, political, or corporate leader who was not a great storyteller. Telling stories is a core competency in business, although it's one that we don't pay enough attention to.

By sending Lenin to Russia our (German) Government had, moreover, assumed a great responsibility. From a miliaty point of view his journey was justified, for Russia had to be laid low. But our Government should have seen to it that we also were not involved in her fall. The events in Russia gave me no cause for complete satisfaction. They considerably eased the military situation, but elements of the greatest danger still remained.

Peace through strength works. We've got the greatest military in the world. I want them to dominate any potential conflict.

...Obama said, 'I welcome debate among my team, but I won't tolerate division'.

But if you're going to go out on a military unit, you've got to allow yourself to be under the control of the commander because you really could put the troops in danger.