Bill Kristol Quotes

You can’t take military action in war without the support of government.

As president, I wouldn't be making the day-to-day combat decisions. The job of the commander-in-chief is to lay the objective out and then you rely upon the generals and admirals and commanders to give you their expert advice on the tools needed to carry out that objective.

There are in most states one or two ministers of war, one of whom is the minister of naval affairs.

There's no excuse for skimping on national defense when the country is at war.

War is too serious a matter to entrust to military men.

The country is going to ruin for a want of a proper Head to the War Department.

And David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds, and with every leader.

As Secretary of Defense I have to be cautious and prudent.

It’s not the plans, it’s the people. I think we should have Defense Department people.

Military decisions are much more difficult and more often wrong than civilian decisions.

The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish ... the kind of war on which they are embarking.

Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?

Nobody ever launched an attack without having misgivings beforehand, You ought to have misgivings before; but when the moment of action is come, the hour of misgivings is passed. It is often not possible to go backward from a course which has been adopted in war. A man must answer "Aye" or "No" to the great questions which are put, and by that decision he must be bound.

Every decision in government is so important, especially when it comes to the military where thousands of people can lose their lives.

One of the things I would immediately do [as Commander in Chief ], in addition to defeating them here at home, is bring back the warrior class - Petraeus, McChrystal, Mattis, Keane, Flynn. Every single one of these generals I know. Every one was retired early because they told President [Barack] Obama things that he didn't want to hear.

If they listen to the military people, we probably wouldn't be having an ISIS right now.

Do not fear or misunderstand when the Government say they are looking to our defences. I give you my word that there will be no great armaments.

Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse.

I'm not a fan of Secretary Rumsfeld. I don't think he listens enough to his uniformed officers.

President Bush has a track record of making the right decisions when it comes to national security.

If I had undertaken the practical direction of military operations, and anything went amiss, I feared that my conscience would torture me, as guilty of the fall of my country, as I had not been familiar with military tactics.

But the federal government, our collective government, has responsibilities that none of these other levels of government can fulfill; and chief among these is national defense.

Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.

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

Of course, I think it is legitimate for the Commander-in-Chief to be concerned for the safety of his soldiers.