Stephen Cambone Quotes

We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge. If we wait for threats to fully materialize we will have waited too long.

We must solve problems before they occur, rather than scrambling to deal with crises after they erupt..

It's much easier to stay out of trouble now than to get out of trouble later.

Take care of what is difficult while it is still easy, and deal with what will become big while it is yet small.

I am a big believer in early intervention.

We must be part of the general staff at the inception, rather than the ambulance drivers at the bitter end.

If people are going to do things which have certain consequences that they would rather avoid, they should do whatever they need to avoid the consequences.

Could we have prevented in 100% certainty? I don't think anything is that certain. However, we would have had a very, very good chance for preventing it.

No risk that is preventable is acceptable.

Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place?

It is axiomatic in politics that the earlier one addresses a problem, the more the alternatives and the easier the solutions.

I'd say if you wanted to forestall bad events, the best thing to do is anticipate them and try to correct them before they get close.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure understated.

Thus it happens in matters of state; for knowing afar off (which it is only given a prudent man to do) the evils that are brewing, they are easily cured. But when, for want of such knowledge, they are allowed to grow so that everyone can recognize them, there is no longer any remedy to be found.

If you don't choose to do it in leadership time up front, you do it in crisis management time down the road.

A government must always be prepared for the unexpected.

I always say that my job is not to think about today. My job is to look around the corner and feel and see what's coming, and then warn everybody else.

Sometimes in international politics, the better part of wisdom is to defer dangers rather than try to eliminate them altogether instantly.

I can predict things. I can improve the uptime and the reliability. I can intervene and cause a better outcome before there's a problem.

We face a wide array of threats, which means we have to have a wide array of capabilities.

We should not be focusing on quick solutions. The really important concern for policymakers everywhere is to prevent disasters - that is, the outlier events that matter the most.

The minute you see that everything is going one way, you get the hell out.

This is something that baffles me about managers: if you know the formation that you will revert to if you are in trouble, why not start with it?

Terror must be attacked from where it originates. Otherwise, you will only be defending yourself against terror.

We bring the fight to the enemy so that they don't bring it to us.