“Direct pressure always tends to harden and consolidate the resistance of an opponent.”

The hydrogen bomb is not the answer to the Western peoples’ dream of full and final insurance of their security … While it has increased their striking power it has sharpened their anxiety and deepened their sense of insecurity.

With growing experience, all skillful commanders sought to profit by the power of the defensive, even when on the offensive.

In strategy the longest way round is often the shortest way there- a direct approach to the object exhausts the attacker and hardens the resistance by compression, whereas an indirect approach loosens the defender’s hold by upsetting his balance.

The easiest and quickest path into the esteem of traditional military authorities is by the appeal to the eye, rather than to the mind. ‘The polish and pipeclay’ school is not yet extinct, and it is easier for the mediocre intelligence to become an authority on buttons, than on tactics.

For even the best of peace training is more theoretical than practical experience … indirect practical experience may be the more valuable because infinitely wider.

While the nominal strength of a country is represented by its numbers and resources, this muscular development is dependent on the state of its internal organs and nerve-system – upon its stability of control, morale, and supply.

If you wish for peace, understand war.

The effect to be sought is the dislocation of the opponent’s mind and dispositions – such an effect is the true gauge of an indirect approach.

The more usual reason for adopting a strategy of limited aim is that of awaiting a change in the balance of force … The essential condition of such a strategy is that the drain on him should be disproportionately greater than on oneself.

No man can exactly calculate the capacity of human genius and stupidity, nor the incapacity of will.

A complacent satisfaction with present knowledge is the chief bar to the pursuit of knowledge.

The higher level of grand strategy [is] that of conducting war with a far-sighted regard to the state of the peace that will follow.

To foster the people’s willing spirit is often as important as to possess the more concrete forms of power.

In the case of a state that is seeking not conquest but the maintenance of its security, the aim is fulfilled if the threat is removed – if the enemy is led to abandon his purpose.

The unexpected cannot guarantee success, but it guarantees the best chance of success.

The practical value of history is to throw the film of the past through the material projector of the present on to the screen of the future.

Military dictatorship is born from the power of the gun, and so it undermines the concept of the rule of law and gives birth to a culture of might, a culture of weapons, violence and intolerance.

I don’t understand what the president’s [Donald Trump] position is on Russia. But I can tell you what my position is on Russia: Russia is a great danger to a lot of its neighbors, and [Vladimir]

If we don’t get the military right nothing else matters.

Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar.

Since my election to Congress, I’ve always been interested in human rights. I really do believe that’s America’s strength. Yes, we have a strong military; yes, we have a strong economy.

Anyone who’s not military knows this fact. Why do you use chemical weapons while you’re advancing ?

A new space race has begun, and most Americans are not even aware of it. This race is not [about] political prestige or military power. This new race involves the whole human species in a contest against time.

What a jolly thing military surveillance is!