John McCain Quotes

Number one, that it is smart to communicate and negotiate with your enemy instead of just waging war with bombs and weapons of mass destruction.

I think that our weakness is understanding that when we go to war, we go to war to win.

War's not black and white; it's gray. If you don't fight in the gray area, you're going to lose.

I know I will be severely criticized by the interventionists in America when I say we should not enter a war unless we have a reasonable chance of winning.

In order to persuade Britain to pack up, to compel her to make peace, it was essential to rob her of her hope of being able still to confront us, on the continent itself, with an adversary of a stature equal to our own.

You get your freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get it. Then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.

A general must be shot or befriended - but never hurt.

Till the enemy's weakness is known , he should be kept on friendly terms.

There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.

In all their wars against the French they [the Americans] never showed such conduct, attention and perseverance as they do now.

We are not interested in a proxy war. Our objective is to change Russia's behavior.

[Barack Obama] is sending more troops [to Afghanistan], but they have also realized that we are not going to win that war through guns and tanks. We have to engage the neighbors, and it is good that there is a non-military strategy in addition to a military strategy. It is, at least, encouraging. Whether it will work or not, the jury is still put.

Barack Obama has done more than anyone else to promote the dangerous illusion that we can choose whether to have a war or not. But our enemies have already made that choice. Retired Marine Corps General James Mattis said: “No war is over until the enemy says it's over. We may think it's over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote“.

Barack Obama has done something I find very hard to understand. Ever since FDR, we've had the capacity to be engaged in two conflicts at once, and he's saying, No, we're going to cut that back to only one conflict.

It seems to me the worst possible concept, militarily, that we would simply stay there, resisting aggression, so-called...it seems to me that the way to "resist aggression" is to destroy the potentialities of the aggressor to continually hit you...When you say, merely, "we are going to continue to fight aggression," that is not what the enemy is fighting for. The enemy is fighting for a very definite purpose-to destroy our forces.

The wrong one will start saying things like "withdraw with honor." We've heard phrases like that before, and they led to thousands and thousands of deaths. Democrats always want to look tough.

And a diplomatist is one who lets the other fellow think he's getting his way, while all the time he's having his own. It never does any special harm to let people have their way with their mouths.

I have experienced the intensity of patriotism as a submarine officer, the ambitions of a competitive businessman, and the intensity of political debate. I have been sorely tempted to launch a military attack on foreigners, and have felt the frustration of having to negotiate with allies or even former enemies to reach a consensus instead of taking more decisive unilateral action.

In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it.

The art of diplomacy is to take an opportunity and turn it into something.

The issue isn't the accuracy of the bombs you have, it's how you use the bombs you have - and more importantly, whether you ought to use bombs at all.

I hold it to be of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you

If America cannot win a war in a week, it begins negotiating with itself.

As almost anyone with war experience knows, you're never supposed to show the enemy what you won't do to win.

In war one must lean on an obstacle in order to overcome it.