Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. Quotes

There has never been a military commander in history who didn’t want more men for a longer time …

Contrary to … conventional wisdom, the consequence of past U. S. Defense cuts were not bad …. austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush.

Austerity [in the Defense Department] meant that risks had to be managed, not eliminated.

The fundamental problem of society is that demands are infinite and resources are always limited

I'm not going to risk our precious military resources on an ineffective, unproductive mission.

The art of coalition command - whether it is here in Afghanistan, whether it was in Iraq or in Bosnia or in Haiti - is to take the resources you are provided with, understand what the strengths and weaknesses are and to employ them to the best overall effect.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

The Pentagon has a long tradition of dialing up the threat to get more dollars at budget time.

[The] up-and-down pattern of [defense] spending over the last 18 years averages out to below zero percent real growth. In other words, if defense spending had followed a path of zero percent real growth, the U.S. probably could have obtained more defense for its dollar.

We have a military policy instead of an energy policy.

From a military point of view it was a complete success

It is not how much you spend on defense as much as how you spend it.

Show me your budget and I’ll describe your strategy.

The way to cut the military budget is to go to the commanding officer of each military facility and tell him he will get another star if he cuts his budget, and we will be trampled in the stampede to save money.

We have multiple challenges competing for finite resources—–and grotesque uncertainty with regard to the military budget.

Our national-security strategy must drive our military budget, rather than the budget setting our strategy.

But as someone pointed out earlier, it is not really about fairness; it is about taking finite resources and applying them where they will have the most effect.

Writing tends to be very deliberate. A novelist could probably run a military campaign with some success. They could certainly run a country.

It is not possible to spend on one thing and then not have consequences on something else.

And it is crucial of course that chief constables are able to make decisions within their budgets about how they deploy their police officers to the greatest effect to ensure that they're able to do the job that the public want them to do.

The Pentagon budget, like all government spending, is an expression of priorities.

We have a responsibility to make sure that the limited resources we have are spent efficiently and effectively and that programs achieve their mission.

We must either reduce the number of our engagements or increase the number of our troops.

Even when you have a big budget, you can't just shoot everything.

You know, a low budget, you have to work harder. You have to plan well; you don't have much time to rehearse.