Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

The combat man isn't the same clean-cut lad because you don't fight a kraut by Marquis of Queensberry rules. You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him the quickest and most effective way you can with the least danger to yourself. He does the same to you.

I am quite confident that in the foreseeable future armed conflict will not take the form of huge land armies facing each other across extended battle lines, as they did in World War I and World War II or, for that matter, as they would have if NATO had faced the Warsaw Pact on the field of battle.

The function and Navy in any future war will be to support the dominant air arm.

Before America entered the war [WW2] I knew we could not win it, but after she entered I knew we could not lose

In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air.

An all-volunteer army is best suited to fight the new wars of the 21st century.

If we are to have a war with America, we will have no hope of winning unless the U.S. fleet in Hawaiian waters can be destroyed.

There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid. Asymmetrically means you're going to try to avoid our strengths. In the 1991 Gulf War, it's like we called Saddam's army out into the schoolyard and beat up that army.

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.

Nobody has yet found a way of bombing that can prevent foot soldiers from walking.

When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path . . . and that is absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland.

The American Revolution was a small part of a major world war going on between France and England, so the French intervened and that was a big factor, but the domestic contribution was basically guerrilla warfare.

The colossus of World War II seemed to be like a pyramid turned upside down, and for the moment the whole burden of the war rested on the few hundred German fighter pilots on the Channel coast.

It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night. You've got two choices: You can wear cammies and shimmy along on your belly, or you can put on a red coat and stand up for everyone to see. It comes down to whether you want to be the British army in the Revolutionary War or the Viet Cong. History tells us which tactic was more effective.

Allied air power was the greatest single reason for the German defeat.

We're facing a very different sort of threat now, a more amorphous threat, al Qaeda, terrorism, and so on. And so the military has abandoned the two-war strategy.

These days we dimly believe that the Second World War was won with Russian blood and American money; and though that is in some ways true, it is also true that, without Churchill, Hitler would almost certainly have won.

During the Battle of Britain the question "fighter or fighter-bomber?" had been decided once and for all: The fighter can only be used as a bomb carrier with lasting effect when sufficient air superiority has been won.

The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. The fighters are our salvation, but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.

D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the american people and system in the 20th century. It was the pivot point of the 20th century. It was the day on which the decision was made as to who was going to rule in this world in the second half of the 20th century. Is it going to be Nazism, is it going to be communism, or are the democracies going to prevail?

A political war can be fought from anywhere.

There is a big difference between fighting the cold war and fighting radical Islam. The rules have changed and we haven't.

US wars are going to be against much weaker enemies. And they have to be won quickly and decisively before a popular reaction develops.

The aggressive spirit, the offensive, is the chief thing everywhere in war, and the air is no exception.

First, separate ground, sea and air warfare is gone forever. If ever again we should be involved in war, we will fight it in all elements, with all services, as one single concentrated effort.