Niki Tsongas Quotes

We can no longer apply the classic criteria to clearly determine whether and when we should use military force. We are waging war in Afghanistan, for example, but it's an asymmetrical war where the enemies are criminals instead of soldiers.

You can't talk about defeating insurgencies in the same way that you can with a conventional army.

Twenty-first century war adds new risks: more and more often there are no front lines, no central command, no rules of engagement - only a chaotic collision of politics, power, faith and bloodlust. Victims are as likely to be civilians as soldiers.

Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.

Time and again, attempts by machine-age armies to impose their will on irregular forces supported by a sympathetic population failed.

Today, we have a powerful military that serves as a deterrent, but the enemy we have today is not like World War II, where you sign a piece of paper and the war is over. Today they're not in uniform. In my time we knew what the enemy looked like, we knew his weapons systems and such. Today, your cab driver may be the person, you have no idea. I don't know how we got into this fix, but we're there.

In Afghanistan this week, outnumbered Northern Alliance rebels on horseback defeated Taliban forces armed with tanks. Experts say the victory is just like the story of David and Goliath and David's friend, the Stealth Bomber.

I believe that this is a different war than America has ever fought in the past. It is a non-conventional war. It means that you've got to use every tool you've got available to you.

This is a totally different war than any we've ever fought before.

Throughout most of our species’ long and bloody slog, warfare has primarily been carried out by bands of loosely organized, ill-disciplined, and lightly armed volunteers who distained open battle in favor of stealthy raids and ambushes: the strategies of both tribal warriors and modern guerrillas and terrorists. In fact, conventional warfare is the relatively recent invention.

Unconventional warfare needs to remain the heart and soul of U.S. Special Operations Command and component commands.

We see a transformation of warfare from the big armies and battlefields in open spaces to a fragmentation of armed groups and smaller armies, which move into city centres, which increasingly become the theatre of warfare.

There is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle; there is nothing comparable to the fixed, passive defense that characterizes orthodox war.

George Washington hated the guerrillas. He wanted to imitate the British red coat armies, fighting as gentlemen are supposed to fight.

William R. Polk discusses the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon [ Bonaparte] and other cases where the conflict turns into a political war, and the invader, who usually has overwhelming power, loses because they can't fight the political war.

Guerrilla wars, and even more so terrorist assaults, are conducted only by forces with insufficient strength to carry out a real war.

Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians.

The fact is that America's weapons systems have made it impossible for anybody to confront it militarily. So, all you have is your wits and your cunning, and your ability to fight in the way the Iraqis are fighting.

We must also recognize the new realities of modern warfare and the modern landscape of a battlefield.

Al-Qa'ida does not follow a traditional command structure, wear uniforms, carry its arms openly, or mass its troops at the borders of the nations it attacks. Nonetheless, it possesses the demonstrated capability to strike with little notice and cause significant civilian or military casualties.

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerilla wins if he does not lose.

The consequences of U. S. superiority is that its opponents, both state and non-state actors, will have little choice but to resort to guerilla tactics and urban warfare because they simply cannot confront U. S. forces head on..

The guerrilla band is not to be considered inferior to the army against which it fights simply because it is inferior in fire power.

The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.

They've not been able to control any Iraqi city. We're waging war against this snake and we will be victorious.