Michael Mullen Quotes

Keep America strong. Strong in our values, strong in our economy, and strong in our military might. We hope to never have to use our military strength, but the world counts on a strong America to keep the worst actors from doing the worst things.

War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.

As proud and capable as it is, I think the idea that the military can build new countries is a tall order, and it's the sort of thing that we would only expect from a military that we have superresourced and thought of as supercapable.

Western powers remain imprisoned by the idea that the world is a dangerous place, that it needs to be managed, and that they are called upon to do the managing.

Our safety requires a long-term military presence in the Middle East because that's where the plans to attack us are emanating.

I certainly don't like a label that suggests I believe that the military is the solution to most of the world's problems.

I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place

For nearly 7 decades United States has been the anchor of global security. This is meant more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them.

In our globalized world, our domestic prosperity depends heavily on the world economy, which, of course, requires stability and order. Who provides that stability and order? The U.S. military.

I don't think that anyone in the pages of 'War on Peace' is arguing that diplomacy is the replacement for military power. But, correctly, the job of the military is to think tactically.

We are proud of the role our military plays in Japan: defending our allies, ensuring regional peace and stability, and responding to humanitarian catastrophes.

We're in danger of breaking our army and preventing our national leaders from having the flexibility to confront not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but crises around the globe.

We all know that in war the political and military factors have to complement each other.

I think there has to be greater heed paid by the Security Council members to military advice.

I've been to many countries and watched a number of conflicts or their residue, and I've served in the military.

Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.

I believe in a strong national defense. But it's my belief that neither Iraq nor Afghanistan poses a threat to national security, and we shouldn't be involved in either area.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

The real peril of war lies not in military defeat. It lies in war itself, whether we win or lose.

In the recent years there have been criticisms levelled against Japan suggesting that she should offer more military forces to the United Nations forces and thereby play a more active role in the keeping and restoration of peace in various parts of the world.

It's not the job of the U.S. military to do nation-building or produce democratic utopias.

The stark and inescapable fact is that today we cannot defend our society by war since total war is total destruction, and if war is used as an instrument of policy, eventually we will have total war.

If bin Laden is in fact publicly killed, then the US military will find itself standing around with its hands in its pockets, wondering what's supposed to come next.

I used to have a little saying I used when people said, 'What are your priorities?' I'd give them a bit of government alphabet soup. I'd say 'CTCPROW: Counterterrorism, counterproliferation, rest of the world.'

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution.