Ellen Tauscher Quotes

The new Congress needs to move quickly to strengthen the Army and Marines - not to send more troops to Iraq - but to rebuild our capacity to meet national security threats globally.

Rebuilding the military is something Putin will pay attention to.

We will strengthen our security by building missile defense, restoring our military might, and standing by and strengthening our intelligence officers.

What we have to stop and think about is that we have weakened ourselves militarily to such an extent that it affects all of our military policies.

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

The best war is the one that doesn’t have to be fought, and the best military is the one capable and versatile enough to deter the next war in the first place.

The military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats.

What we can afford least is to define the problem of future war as we would like it to be and, by doing so, introduce into our defense vulnerabilities based on self-delusion.

We had eight years of Barack Obama depleting our military, ignoring a lot of the threats around the world.

The bottom line, addressing defense spending cuts with a meat ax like sequestration will damage defense readiness for decades to come.

Our nation's military is effective because it is nonpartisan, relies heavily on science and technology, and takes the world as it is, not as it wishes it to be.

In the face of a rising China, along with authoritarian regimes from Brazil to the Philippines to Turkey to Russia, and the constant presence of belligerent non-state actors, we need to reform our military to deal with asymmetrical threats.

We've got to strengthen our military long-term. We don't know what the world is going to throw at us down the road.

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.

The crises in North Korea, Iran, the Middle East, show how quickly things can change and how they can go wrong. We must be prepared. And right now the Army is not.

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.

We have global interests, potential threats from elsewhere, North Korea, Iran, Taiwan Straits and the like. We must be prepared for any future threat. That is why it is important that this be a transition year, 2006.

An overstretched military undermines homeland security and our ability to meet threats around the world.

From a very strategic level, I believe the military is part of the solution to better outcomes around the world, but at a higher level, it's really about economies.

In State of the Union addresses, I always look at the foreign policy and military parts first, which are generally pretty minimal.

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.

To secure peace is to prepare for war.

Our nation must manage significant national security challenges over the next several years. We are already facing a potential conflict with Iraq, new challenges on the Korean peninsula, and key decisions in the president's plans to transform the military.

In time of peace prepare for war.

Today, the US spends less on defense as a percentage of our economy than we did at any time since he Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the world's only superpower, that is an invitation to very serious trouble.