Quotes About Military

I grew up in a military family, and there's something about that military-style uniform, all cleaned up, a brutal control effort the military necessarily breeds.

Things can change if the military can do a paradigm shift and gets out of the shame and coverup cycle and be a leader in our culture. In the 50s, 60s and 70s there were huge race problems in the military even more severe than the culture at large. The military saw it was detrimental and it changed and became a model to society at large.

We don't have any intention whatsoever to use military force to solve the Palestinian problem. But when it comes to terror - when it comes to terror, I believe that military - the right military steps is a very, very complicated kind of warfare, where I make every effort not to escalate the situation.

Our military and the strength of our military and the strengthening of our military is a number one priority for the Trump administration.

I am constantly challenged by pessimists who insist that military solutions are the only way to go. This was true in the 1980s, and it is true today. You should know that I do not consider myself a pacifist; there are times, in my view, when military action may be necessary.

The intellectual and moral failures common to America's general officer corps in Vietnam and Iraq constitute a crisis in American generalship. Any explanation that fixes culpability on individuals is insufficient. No one leader, civilian or military, caused failure in Vietnam or Iraq. Different military and civilian leaders in the two conflicts produced similar results. In both conflicts, the general officer corps designed to advise policymakers, prepare forces and conduct operations failed to perform its intended functions.

When it comes to the military, we have no choice. We cannot have a depleted military.

According to the National Priorities Project, military expenditures are 54% of the budget. The next biggest line item is 7%. And there are a whole bunch of 7 percents. So in short, we have a military budget surrounded by a lot of footnotes. This is not serving us well.

I don't want to see the military falling. I want to see the military rising to dignified heights of professionalism and true patriotism.

In 1988, when democracy was restored, the military establishment was still very powerful. The extremist groups were still there. And when the aid and assistance to Pakistan was cut, we had to adopt harsh economic policies. So in a way, it showed that democracy doesn't pay, and the military was able to reassert itself.

We still name our military helicopter gunships after victims of genocide. Nobody bats an eyelash about that: Blackhawk. Apache. And Comanche. If the Luftwaffe named its military helicopters Jew and Gypsy, I suppose people would notice.

I think we have not done a good job of explaining to people in rural America what is actually happening, number one. And, number two, we're not expressing appreciation and acknowledging the contribution that rural America makes. Where does your food come from? Where does the water come from? Where does the energy feedstock come from? It all comes from rural areas. Where does your military come from? Nearly 35 to 40 percent of the military is from 15 percent of America's population living in rural America. It makes a tremendous contribution to this country. It just isn't recognized.

It is not possible . . . to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city.

We've got to make America strong again. And right now, we are not strong. Believe me. We have a depleted military. We have the greatest people in the world in our military. But it is very sadly depleted.

My hope was that by saying clearly to Saddam Hussein, "we're going to enforce UN Resolutions," that he would make the decision to leave peaceably and at least allow for inspectors to come into his country, and if he chose not to, there would be a military option. I want people to understand that the military was my last option. I had a strategy and hopefully solving the problem peacefully - and it wasn't just me, it was a coalition of nations that were involved.

I've ordered plans to begin for the massive rebuilding of the United States military. Had great support from the Senate. I've had great support from congress, generally. We've pursued this rebuilding in the hopes that we will never have to use this military.

Isn't it a shame military doctors couldn't be as good as military sunglasses?

The concept of military necessity is seductively broad, and has a dangerous plasticity. Because they invariably have the visage of overriding importance, there is always a temptation to invoke security "necessities" to justify an encroachment upon civil liberties. For that reason, the military-security argument must be approached with a healthy skepticism.

I had a terrible dream yesterday with military helicopters and the Taliban. I have had such dreams since the launch of the military operation in Swat. My mother made me breakfast and I went off to school. I was afraid going to school because the Taliban had issued an edict banning all girls from attending schools.

As proud and capable as it is, I think the idea that the military can build new countries is a tall order, and it's the sort of thing that we would only expect from a military that we have superresourced and thought of as supercapable.

It's hard for me to sympathize with a young person who chooses to go into the military because they know where they're going. I think we need to start depopulating the military.

The American people want to see our nation standing tall on the world stage again. They want to see us supporting our military, rebuilding our military, commanding the respect of the world, and they want to see the American economy off to the races again.

The United States is a violent military state. It's been involved in military action all over the place.

Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are, and they've never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military.

In Latin America, in the past, it was almost impossible to guarantee democracy. There were military dictatorships, and nowadays there are not so many military dictatorships. Although we have a dictator in Honduras, as a result of a coup, now as a president, he is almost the only one I would say. But again led or managed, gestated by the U.S. government.

Bernie's campaign was very principled in most regards, I think, you know, he certainly didn't go far enough in questioning the military policy, the military-industrial complex, and so on, but you know I think that's the price you pay for being in the Democratic Party. And Bernie [Sanders] has to pay that price.

In Aleppo, Mr. Putin has directed his military to conduct a devastating campaign. He's targeted schools, markets, not just assisted Syrians in doing it, his military has targeted schools and markets and other civilian infrastructure. It's resulted in the deaths of thousands of civilians.

Even military ministers have no more than a certain amount of control. It is customary that they have the right and the power to participate, from a political and military point of view, in the planning of actual operations

This will be one of my most important elements. When I talk cost cutting, I do for so many different departments where the money is pouring and they don't even know what to do with it. But when it comes to the military we have to enhance our military. It's depleted. That's the word I tend to use.

I appeal to the contemptible speech made lately by Sir Robert Peel to an applauding House of Commons. 'Orders of merit,' said he, 'were the proper rewards of the military' (the desolators of the world in all ages). 'Men of science are better left to the applause of their own hearts.' Most learned Legislator! Most liberal cotton-spinner! Was your title the proper reward of military prowess? Pity you hold not the dungeon-keys of an English Inquisition! Perhaps Science, like creeds, would flourish best under a little persecution.

It's very hard to feel the difficulties that the military goes through. It's very hard to feel the difficulties of military families, unless you're in that environment. And sometimes you have to force yourself to try and put yourself in other people's sort of shoes and environment to get the sense of that.

Now all of us deplore this vast military spending. Yet, in the face of the Soviet attitude, we realize its necessity. Whatever the cost, America will keep itself secure. But in the process we must not, by our own hand, destroy or distort the American system. This we could do by useless overspending. I know one sure way to overspend. That is by overindulging sentimental attachments to outmoded military machines and concepts.

You cannot use [nuclear weapons] to target civilians; you cannot use them against military targets if they have indiscriminate effects on civilians in addition to the attack on the military target.

Geeks run the world. Condoleezza Rice is a geek, Bill Gates is clearly a geek, many of the big filmmakers and writers are geeks, lots of military people are geeks. Anyone who has heard Donald Rumsfeld talk about military hardware knows they are in the presence of a geek.

There had been a free and open election in Haiti in the early 1990s and president Jean-Bertrand Aristide won, a populist priest. A few months later came the expected military coup - a very vicious military junta took over, of which the United States was passively supportive. Not openly, of course, but Haitians started to flee from the terror and were sent back and on towards Guantanamo Bay. Of course, that is against International Law. But the United States pretended that they were "economic refugees."

The truth is I am beholden to no one, nobody's gonna tell me what to do, no - no group that owns a military firm that gives military supplies. Because I know - I've heard the case where often times you wanna buy certain weapons or something and you like one but you get the other one because that one has a contact to our politicians.

Our guys working this area for a living all believe Chalabi and all those guys in their Bond Street suits are charlatans. To take them for a source of anything except a fantasy trip would be a real stretch. But it's an article of faith among those with no military experience that the Iraqi military is low-hanging fruit.

Totalitarianism extends to whatever touches it...psychological technique, as it operates in the army or in a great industrial plant, entails a direct action on the family. It involves a psychological adaptation of family life to military or industrial methods, supervision of family life, and training family life for military or industrial service. Technique can leave nothing untouched in a civilization. Everything is its concern. Technique, which is destroying all other civilizations, is more than a simple mechanism: it's a whole civilization in itself.

To be an ally is a formal military alliance. And we have a formal military alliance in NATO. But we are partners with other countries all across the world. And they're - they will be a partner.

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.

I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?

For fifty years, we heard NATO is necessary to save Western Europe from the Russian hordes, you know the slave state, stuff I was taking about. In 1990-91, no Russian hordes. Okay, what happens? Well there are actually visions of the future system that were presented. One was [Mikhail] Gorbachev. He called for a Eurasian security system, with no military blocs. He called it a Common European Home. No military blocs, no Warsaw Pact. Just an integrated security system with no conflicts.Now the other vision was presented by George Bush, this is the "statesman".

I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.

We have to have the strongest military by far...

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars.

South America has virtually broken away in the last decade. That's an event of historic significance. South America just doesn't follow US orders. In fact there isn't a single US military base left there.

I respect people in the military. And I always have, at least since I've been there.

America's gun culture demonstrates itself in the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality of people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed in the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nutjob in body armor and military style artillery. When in fact almost every policeman in the country would tell you that that would have only increased the tragedy and added to the carnage.