Jeb Bush Quotes

The American army between world wars after World War I had virtually disintegrated. It was a very small force, given largely to practicing cavalry charges on western outposts.

We can cut the Defense Department budget because we’ve got bombs running out of our ears.

Complex systems work until the day that they don’t work.

Continuous paring of appropriations has reduced the Army virtually to the status of that of a third-rate power

ISIS has a caliphate the size of Indiana! Also, US military has been totally gutted. Can't even project power anymore.

You can't carpet bomb ISIS if you don't have planes and bombs to attack them with. And if we continue those cuts that we're doing , not to mention additional cuts, we are going to be left with the oldest and the smallest Air Force this country has ever had, and that leaves us less safe.

I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it's embarrassing for America.

America's military is second to none in the world. We're blessed with terrific soldiers, and extraordinary technology and intelligence. But the idea of a trillion dollars in cuts through sequestration and budget cuts to the military would change that.

We have an Army that hasn't been in this position since World War II, in terms of levels and in terms of readiness and in terms of everything else. We are not capable like we have to be.

Knowledge is the ultimate weapon. It always has been.

Economic systems come, and economic systems go. No economic system lasts forever. Capitalism is not likely to last forever, either.

He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.

What we do have to do, is listen to what Donald Trump's been saying about our military. He's called it a disaster. He says our military can't win anymore. That's a direct insult to every single man and woman who's wearing the uniform today.

Finally, a safer world presupposes the revival of the virtuous circle of non-proliferation of weapons and disarmament.

Not only the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, everything is going away at a time when certainly we are at a top priority for making sure that doesn't happen. We're not respected to the extent we were and if we keep going like this, we won't be respected at all.

We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.

The most rigid structures, the most impervious to change, will collapse first.

Ironically, the universities have trained hundreds of thousands of graduates for jobs that soon will not exist. They have trained people to maintain a structure that cannot be maintained. The elite...know only how to feed the beast until it dies. Once it is dead, they will be helpless. Don't expect them to save us. They don't know how....and when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implodes and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, the power elite will be exposed as being as helpless, and as self-deluded as the rest of us

It's pretty clear we have enough Guard people in the United States, but are they capable of handling our oversees commitments as well? We need to figure out how that impacts our ability in Iraq.

We now have only 31 brigade combat teams or 490,000 troops. And only one-third of combat teams are considered combat-ready. That's not good for our country. I actually don't even like saying it because plenty of countries are watching us right now, but we'll get it shaped up very quickly.

We now have a lack of readiness that is quite scary. We have planes that were - that Harry Truman inaugurated, the B-52. We have - the Navy has been gutted and decimated. The readiness of the Marines is way down.

If all individuals were conditioned to machine efficiency in the performance of their duties there would have to be at least one person outside the machine to give the necessary orders; if the machine absorbed or eliminated all those outside the machine, the machine will slow down and stop forever.

If the system breaks down the consequences will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

The opposite of ‘open’ isn’t closed. The opposite of open is broken.

If we need women in our defense forces, we must not need much defense.